Steve Benen wondered who was going to fall for Mitt Romney's latest online video called "Bump in the Road" and as he noted, the media sadly seemed impressed with the ad. David Gergen and Wolf Blitzer repeated the ad's dishonest attack on President Obama on CNN's The Situation Room this afternoon.
Steve Benen has more on Romney's attack here -- Bumps, roads and cheap shots:
Mitt Romney’s campaign seems to have generated quite a bit of buzz this morning, releasing an online video called “Bump in the Road.” It’s an early sign of just how dishonest the Romney campaign intends to be.
The video press release — calling it an ad is a stretch, since the campaign isn’t actually paying for it to run anywhere — shows struggling Americans outraged that President Obama characterized recent economic difficulties as a “bump in the road.” The Romney campaign even has these folks lying down on pavement, making the metaphor literal.
The message seems to be that President Obama just doesn’t take the suffering of the unemployed seriously enough. We’re supposed to believe Obama’s the heartless jerk who sees a 9.1% unemployment rate and blithely dismisses human suffering as a “bump in the road.”
The media certainly seems impressed with the attack. The video was Mark Halperin’s lead story all morning, and the Washington Post’s Ed O’Keefe praised it as the kind of “ad” that “could turn the tide” of the presidential campaign. The problem, of course, is that the ad is a lie. Even Romney, with his limited understanding of current events, knows full well that President Obama never characterized the unemployed as a “bump in the road.” Here’s what the president actually said [...]
No sane person could see these remarks and interpret them as Obama casually disregarding the needs of those looking for work. Romney is pulling a fast one, hoping slick production values and a cheap message fool voters. It’s already fooling some in the media, so perhaps it’s a smart bet.
And I'd say Blitzer and Gergen just made your point for you Steve.
And as Steve also pointed out in his post, this brings up the topic of Romney's actual record on job creation, which as I've already pointed out here, isn't so great.
