Politics this week

So an Obama superpac produces an ad that basically blames Romney for a man's wife's death. The ad ignores a number of facts in doing this: The man was laid off in 2001 after the steel plant failed. Bain Capital had been called in by the company in 1993 in order to survive. It didn't work. Romney stepped down from Bain in 1999. Mr. Soptic, the man in this ad, was offered a buyout but turned it down (as far as I can tell) . He was also eligible to continue his company provided health coverage under Cobra. Yes, that is expensive. But he apparently chose not to. Probably because the family still had health care insurance through his wife's job. She lost that coverage 2 years later when she quit her job after she was injured.

in 2006 (the ad says "shortly after" Mr. Soptic's layoff), Mrs. Soptic felt ill enough to go to a hospital thinking she might have pneumonia. Cancer was found instead. Stage 4. She died not long after (one report says 2 weeks later, the ad says "22 days later") from the cancer.

It's a horrible thing to lose a spouse. It is also a horrible thing to blame someone who had nothing whatsoever to do with it.

When queried by CNN, Obama's deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, denied knowing anything about Mr. Soptic's story or the ad. However, it turns out that she held a campaign conference call with Mr. Soptic and the campaign itself ran an ad using Mr. Soptic and his story.

I'm disgusted. I hope you are too.

The Washington Posts's take on this is at  [link]
The CNN report on it is here.