Lying in an ad?

SCRIPT (As translated by The New York Times):
A male announcer says: “Obama and his allies in Congress say they are on the side of immigrants, but they’re not. Reports in the press say that their efforts were like ‘poison pills’ that caused immigration reform to fail. The results: ‘No’ to the guest workers program; ‘no’ to a path to citizenship, ‘no’ to secure borders. The reform didn’t pass. Is that being on our side? Obama and his Congressional allies — ready to block immigration reform, but not ready to govern.”

Today's New York Times reports that this ad may be inaccurate and misleading (shocking, I know). In the article, the Times states that Mr. Obama was among a group of Democrats who supported provisions to the original immigration bill, which ultimately lead to its unsuccessful passing. However, the Times also reports (which of course is not the image you get from this ad) that one of the key reasons the bill didn't pass was because of a group of Republicans who changed their votes in the 11th hour. In addition, after the bill failed to pass Mr. Obama was praised by Senator Mel Martinez a Republican from Florida who was a major backer of the bill.

Based on the professor's recent post it doesn't seem that this political strategy will ever end, and this is definitely unfortunate. In addition, it seems that this ad is trying to target a population that is less informed and more easily influenced, and vulnerable to specific issues.

This only further highlights the tragedy of the state of our media and political campaigning that one day will hopefully change some day soon.