Obama Ad Inaccurately Quotes Krugman's Words Against Hillary

by Deb Cupples |   Last week, economist Paul Krugman made it very clear that he finds John McCain's gas tax holiday proposal potentially harmful.  Krugman also made very clear that he doesn't like Hillary Clinton's counter-proposal but considers it harmless.

That said, Krugman reportedly heard about (but has not seen) a negative Obama ad that falsely uses Krugman's criticism of McCain as an attack against Hillary.  At his blog, Krugman made it very clear that he would be displeased if Obama's ad did this:

"I did not say that the Clinton proposal would increase oil industry profits. If the ad implies that I did, it should be retracted.

"The Clinton proposal is financed by an excess profits tax. At worst, it sends money in a circle. In practice, it would probably reduce oil industry profits at least slightly, since the rise in the pre-tax price of gasoline probably wouldn’t wipe out all of the tax cut.

"I was very clear when I wrote about the Clinton proposal that while I didn’t think it was good policy, it was not the same as McCain’s, and relatively harmless. If the Obama people are suggesting otherwise, they’re being deliberately dishonest." (Krugman blog, emphasis added)

Below is a YouTube clip of Obama's ad, which does mention a New York Times piece from April 28.  Krugman wrote such a piece: in it, he says that McCain's plan (not Hillary's) "would boost oil industry profits." Here's the relevant parts of that Krugman's piece:

"The impression that Mr. McCain’s tax talk is all about pandering is reinforced by his proposal for a summer gas tax holiday — a measure that would, in fact, do little to help consumers, although it would boost oil industry profits.

"More and more, Mr. McCain sounds like a man who will say anything to become president."

And more and more, Sen. Obama sounds like a man who will say anything to become president.

At the very least, the people who wrote Obama's ad copy seem to have been "deliberately dishonest" when using Krugman's quote against Hillary. 'So much for the Obama campaign's purported aversion to dirty, old-style politics.

The decent thing would be for the Obama campaign to broadcast a retraction, as Krugman suggests -- and to publicly apologize for having twisted Krugman's words.

This is not the first time that an Obama campaign ad seemed misleading. Recently, one of his ads stated that he hasn't taken tainted money (i.e., money from lobbyists and special interests), when evidence suggests that he has.

Memeorandum has commentary.

Related BN-Politics Posts:

* More Hypocrisy: Obama Supported Gas-Tax Holiday in Illinois

* ABC Ignores Obama's Misleading Messagre re: Lobbyist Money

* Krugman Criticizes Obama's Statements on Fox Interview

* Dozens of Reasons to Vote for Hillary Clinton

.

Comments

[Adam]

Turns out that Hillary's ad team out-did Obama's ad team by a long shot.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/berni_mccoy/321

It's one thing to lazily picking out a line from an editorial without looking closely at the content. It's another to fabricate a fake newspaper article.

[D. Cupples]

Adam,

I just looked at that link. I don't get what you're saying. And does your point relate to the point that my post makes?

Or are you just saying, "See, Hillary does bad things too"?

If so, it doesn't relate to my point, because mine specifically hinges on the fact that Obama has repeatedly (and falsely) claimed that he doesn't play nasty, old politics.

I don't excuse Hillary's Bosnia-related misleading based on the many misleading statements that Obama has made, so it would be hard for me to accept someone's else excusing Obama's misleading based on Hillary's having done similar.

If you're not attempting to do that, then please just IGNORE what I said. :)

[Adam]

I already responded to your point on the gas tax thread - basically, it looks like a stupid mistake by a staffer, but it changes literally nothing. They could have picked from dozens of other quotes, and someone lazily picked one without looking too closely at the context.

Incidentally, I'm not sure you're aware of this, but the quote only ran in Indiana. The North Carolina version used a quote from the NC governor in stead.

My point is that the Obama ad mistake is easily explained away - someone was looking for a replacement quote for the Indiana version of the ad, and grabbed something without reading the article. The Clinton campaign ad, on the other hand, involves deliberately misleading the viewer - creating a newspaper headline that, in reality, never existed.

It's not "Hillary's campaign is just as bad". It's "your accusation does not apply to Obama's campaign, but it DOES apply to Hillary's campaign".

As an aside, neither of these rise anywhere near the level of the Hillary/Tuzla thing. These mistakes/deceptions were carried out by (probably low-level) staffers. I'd be shocked if either Obama or Clinton were directly involved in making the ads. I'm guessing they watched them one time for final approval and that's it.

[D. Cupples]

Adam,

"My point is that the Obama ad mistake is easily explained away - someone was looking for a replacement quote for the Indiana version of the ad, and grabbed something without reading the article. The Clinton campaign ad, on the other hand, involves deliberately misleading the viewer - creating a newspaper headline that, in reality, never existed."

See, I disagree. I think that Obama's campaign deliberately tried to mislead viewers of the ad into believing that an "expert" at the NYT (i.e., Krugman) had criticized Hillary with the quote, when in fact Krugman was criticizing McCain.

You find it easy to explain away, but that's often the case when we talk about questionable actions of the Obama campaign.

I STILL DON'T understand the Hillary ad that you sent me to. I told you that after I looked at it.

Tuzla was worse than the Krugman ad, in a way. However, Tuzla does't rise to the level of Obama's repeated deceptions about special-interest money.

I know, you explain that away, but I CAN'T.

The purported refusal to take special-interest dollars is at the root of Obama's CLAIM that he's new and different and not playing the same game that Hillary and McCain play.

In fact, Obama has just found a back-door way to play the same game.

It's important, because Obama got a lot of supporters because they bought the (false) line about his being new and different and clean when he's not.