As Digby pointed out today, Rick Santorum's latest campaign ad really is a nasty piece of work. I really don't have much more to add than what she already wrote here on what I think of it -- Subliminal Froth.
And she's not the only one that noticed the similarities to the infamous RATS ad. Here's more from U.S. News on MSNBC -- 'Rats' redux? Santorum campaign ad appears to link Obama with Ahmadinejad:
Rick Santorum's presidential campaign appears to have released a new video that subliminally links President Barack Obama with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The video, titled "Obamaville," is a 65-second-long production that presents bleak images of an America in dire economic and social straits, interspersed with scenes of international unrest. Prominent among those is a segment showing images of protests and violence in Iran, featuring pictures of Ahmadinejad. It doesn't include the mandatory "I'm Rick Santorum and I approved this message" tagline that would be necessary if it were intended to air on television. [...]
At the 40-second mark, an image of Ahmadinejad is shown on a small TV screen. For less than a half-second, the picture flashes to a similarly framed picture of Obama before returning to the Iranian dictator.
At full speed, it looks like a tiny video glitch or small lightning strike, but if you slow down the video, the image of Obama is clear in individual frames: [...]
Reached by NBC News on Friday night, Hogan Gidley, a Santorum spokesman, said it is "absurd" to think the ad is likening Obama to Ahmadinejad.
"If Ahmadinejad gets a nuclear weapon, then we're obviously going to deal with the fallout and coverage of that," Gidley said. "All we're going to be seeing is images of him and the president. We were trying to illustrate that." [...]
The ad in some ways is reminiscent of one produced by the Republican National Committee for George W. Bush in 2000, in which the word "RATS" briefly appeared on the screen in a reference to Al Gore's health care proposals before resolving into the word "BUREAUCRATS" at the 25-second mark.
They disabled the comments on their You Tube version. Gee, I wonder why.
