Lies aren't the same as dirty politics

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August 20, 2012

Lies aren't the same as dirty politics

Anonymous Daily Star The Daily Star Sat Sep 08, 2012, 04:50 PM EDT

The gloves have come off on the campaign trail in recent weeks, with President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney making increasingly personal attacks in their advertisements and from the stump including many of dubious validity.

Two ads have stood out. One, by the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA, blames Romney for the death of an uninsured Missouri woman who succumbed to cancer after her husband's employer, GST Steel, went bankrupt following a deal with Bain Capital, Romney's private equity firm.

The woman, it turns out, had insurance through her employer for some time after the GST Steel plant closed, and the company's demise was due to a variety of factors unrelated to the deal with Bain.

Romney's campaign made its own misleading attack with an ad accusing Obama of "a plan to gut welfare reform by dropping work requirements."

The ad references the Obama administration's decision to allow states to seek federal waivers from the 1996 welfare reform law. But states must devise a "more efficient or effective means to promote employment" among welfare recipients that includes quantifiable benchmarks _ or they lose the waiver.

Former GOP House committee adviser Ron Haskins, who had a hand in crafting the 1996 welfare reform bill, said the attacks on the plan are "very misleading," and Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican who supports Romney, defended the plan in July.

But while it's important for the news media to bat down dishonest arguments, one shouldn't fall for the selective outrage emanating from both campaigns as they accuse each other of "dirty politics." Romney in an interview this week sought to frame the entire campaign by drawing boundaries around those aspects of his record he deems acceptable as campaign fodder.

"Our campaign would be helped immensely if we had an agreement between both campaigns that we were only going to talk about issues and (not) attacks based upon -- business or family or taxes or things of that nature," Romney said to NBC's Chuck Todd.

As a presidential candidate, Romney is essentially a job applicant, and to suggest that his prior employment is off-limits for an electorate still unsure of whether it should hire him is downright laughable.

Romney on his own can defend his record as head of Bain Capital and as a taxpayer; it isn't the responsibility of Romney's opponent or the media to shield him from such scrutiny.

Politics has always been a fencing match of sorts, where cogent attacks find purchase and weaker arguments are parried aside. It isn't the referee's place to step in every time a competitor makes ad hoc pronouncements about what constitutes sportsmanship.