The Whole Deck Of Race Cards

Steve M. catches this tremendously offensive, racist, lie-filled "advocacy" ad for the CA-36 special election where Democrat Janice Hahn is basically called a criminal who hangs out with other criminals, commonly known as "black people".

Now, what do you think would happen if the races and parties were reversed? If this ad were made on behalf of a black Democrat in a local election, condemnations would be demanded not just of the people involved, but of all black politicians -- oh, not Herman Cain or Allen West, but all black Democrats, and Democrats in general.

So I want every Republican to have to answer for this ad. I want the press to ask John Boehner and Paul Ryan to condemn it. I want them to ask Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann and that guy who just entered the race -- what's his name? Huntsman? -- to denounce it. If Republicans won't pledge never to hire Ladd Ehlinger, the maker of the ad, I think we deserve to know why. I want there to be demands that every Republican politician condemn Turn Right USA and denounce any ads made on their behalf by the PAC. I want this to be as all-consuming a story as the Anthony Weiner story, until everyone involved in making and disseminating the ad is a pariah. And if the press won't put every Republican in America on the spot, I want the Democratic Party to do so.

I know nothing remotely like this is going to happen. But it's the only appropriate response. 

And the best part is this tremendously awful ad has already achieved its purpose:  putting CA-36 on the map for national Republicans to take out Janice Hahn because "the damn liberals think we're racists" and of course the only racists are people who think there's anything offensive about this ad.

So now putting Hahn's opponent, Tea Party Republican Craig Huey, into office by whatever means necessary is now the other thing that will matter.  Case in point, Robert Stacy McCain's defense of the ad, saying:

If a candidate for Congress was, indeed, demonstrably “friendly to gang members,” I think that’s what they used to call “news.” Just sayin’ . . .

Right.   TPM's got that covered since Bob there is too lazy to bother.

...a review of the Fox 11 News story found major flaws that undermine its central allegations. Most notably, records and interviews show that the gang intervention workers identified in the report have not received city funding. Additionally, a convicted rapist was wrongly identified as a gang intervention worker, and Hahn was mistakenly accused of providing funds directly to gang workers.

So no, the ad's premise that Hahn was on the take from gang members is in fact demonstrably false.  The ad is full of complete crap on top of being arguably the most spectacularly offensive political ad I've seen in recent years.  In short, it's exactly what these guys wanted to do, to shock the right into not letting another special election go by with another ho-hum loss.

It also shows you some 17 months before the 2012 elections just where the right is going on political attack ads.  You will see more of this.  And it will be much, much worse.