Oooh, That Smell

Not surprisingly, when looking for honesty in both the media and politics, some of the most trustworthy sources for truth today are in high-quality entertainment. There's a reason shows like 'The Daily Show' and 'The Colbert Report', as well as certain fictional movies, TV programs, and Broadway-style shows are doing so well these days - because the best among them have a heaping helping of truth.

Sadly, that's exactly the opposite of what TV viewers in so-called swing state media markets - like those in Florida, Virginia, and the Iowa-influenced Omaha/Lincoln market - will be getting hit with. Those states will be experiencing another helping of fibs, lies, and untruths, thanks to the latest load of baloney from Mitt Romney about the welfare system.

In case you missed it, earlier this summer several governors, especially the conservative Republican governors of Utah and Nevada asked the Obama Administration for some flexibility on certain parts of the federally backed welfare-to-work program. 'Workfare', as it was called when President Clinton put the program into effect in 1996, requires that individuals getting certain types of public assistance also should be working or prove they are actively looking for work. Yet, it's also a fact that even though President Obama's policies (like the stimulus plan) have grown or recovered half of the jobs lost due to the Bush recession, there are still millions of Americans out of work.

Knowing this fact, and hearing the pleas from governors, President Obama allowed some governors to begin to experiment with the flexibility they asked for in achieving the goals of 'Workfare' - though the White House insisted the existing work requirements would stay in place.

So Obama gave these Republican governors the proverbial inch. Now Mitt Romney has decided to turn the President's willingness to work together with Republicans for the best interests of the American people, into a blatantly false new ad. The ad, filled with pants-on-fire lies, is probably the most craven attempt at reviving the politics of race and class resentment that any of us has seen since the days of outright race-baiting in political campaigns.

Romney's ad leaves out the fact that as governor of Massachusetts, Romney himself supported the very flexibility he's now painting as 'gutting welfare'.

Thankfully, multiple legitimate media organizations are blasting Romney's ad as 'blatantly dishonest', a risky gambit, 'the politics of resentment', and even outright calling it what it is: a lie.

We've mentioned before the many lists of Romney lies that have been complied by some in the media - but this latest ad is probably the biggest load of garbage we've seen dumped on anyone, in either the news or entertainment fields.

There's usually a very telling scent when a campaign like Romney's begins throwing out buckets of smelly trash like their latest effort.

It's called 'desperation'.