A New Low: Shameful Smear Ad Blames Romney for Woman's Death

So Obama’s former staffer Bill Burton’s Super PAC Priorities USA has a disgusting attack ad out today that pretty much accuses Mitt Romney of killing a woman.  They imply that after a man loses his job, he lost his health insurance, and shortly after his wife got sick and died.  Alas, the timeline doesn’t add up: Romney left Bain in 1999, the man lost his job in 2001, and his wife died in 2006. 

But pretty much, using this twisted logic, if any family member has died of the millions of people who’ve lost their jobs and thus health insurance in the last 3 ½ years under the Obama economy and 8.3% unemployment it’s Obama’s fault.  (And who can forget that it is his fault that Brian Terry, U.S. Border Patrol Agent, died because of his administration’s “Fast and Furious” gun running scheme.)

To defend his indefensible ad, Burton told Politico,

“We’re illustrating how long it took for communities and individuals to recover from the closing of these businesses. Families and individuals had to find new jobs, new sources of health insurance and a way to make up for the pensions they lost. Mitt Romney has had an enduring impact on the lives of thousands of men and women and for many of them, that impact has been devastating.”

Well, Bill Burton, how long will it take “for communities and individuals to recover from” the devastating policies of the Obama administration?  Just like you accuse Romney, “families and individuals have had to find new jobs, new sources of health insurance and a way to make up for the pensions they lost” because of Obamanomics.  It is obvious that Obama has “had an enduring impact on the lives of thousands of men and women and for many of them, that impact has been devastating.”

This is a shameful, despicable smear ad that makes me sick to my stomach.  

Between Dirty Harry Reid smearing Romney with lies saying he didn't pay taxes for 10 years and that his dead father should be ashamed of him, as well as attacks on Ann Romney, the Obama campaign's scorched earth politics of personal destruction has begun.  We are only at the beginning of August, is there nothing Obama and his allies won't do? Any despicable attack or vicious lie they won't spread? How much longer can we bare to live in Obama's sick, twisted, disgusting, unconscionable, heinous, political world? November can't come soon enough!

P.S.  Don’t forget - Romney has literally saved lives.

UPDATE: RedState's Erick Erickson has additional details on just how spurious the claims of the ad are (emphasis my own):

Mitt Romney and Bain Capital bought GST Steel at some point. Romney left day to day operations of Bain in 1999. Thereafter, Bain offered Joe Soptic a buy out and he refused. Eventually the steel plant went out of business and Joe went on the unemployment line. That happened in 2001.

In 2002 or 2003, Mrs. Soptic injured her rotator cuff and left her job. She lost her insurance. In 2006, she was diagnosed with cancer and died a few days later. It is a terrible tragedy that Mitt Romney had nothing to do with.

It seems Mr. Soptic chose poorly on the buy out offer, lost his job, and would prefer to blame Mitt Romney than anyone else. Priorities USA has set a new standard — Mitt Romney killed a woman, despite being removed from both time of death and decision making.

UPDATE II: Politico catches Team Obama lying about their knowledge of the man in the disgusting ad:

When President Obama’s aides said they weren’t familiar with former Missouri steelworker Joe Soptic’s life story, all they had to do was check their own campaign archives.

Soptic, laid off from Bain Capital-owned GST Steel, stars in a Priorities USA Action spot this week in which he tells of how his wife died without health insurance after he lost his job. Soptic also appeared, wearing what appears to be an identical shirt, in a May television ad for the Obama campaign.

Asked about the Priorities spot on MSNBC Wednesday morning, Robert Gibbs said he doesn’t “know the specifics” while Stephanie Cutter said on CNN: “I don’t know the facts about when Mr. Soptic’s wife got sick or the facts about his health insurance.”

And Jen Psaki told reporters on Air Force One that “we don't' have any knowledge of the story of the family,” according to Yahoo! News.

But Cutter hosted an Obama campaign conference call in May in which Soptic told reporters the very story featured in the Priorities spot.

So, is this a new new low?

UPDATE III: Obama Team admits knowing the story.  Gotta love the opening sentence:

Obama campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki acknowledged Thursday that the campaign was no longer pleading ignorance about the story of a man who has appeared in both a super PAC ad and a campaign ad.

"No one is denying he was in one of our campaign ads. He was on a conference call telling his story," Psaki told reporters on Air Force One.

...yesterday on Air Force One, Psaki said, "we don’t have any knowledge of the story of the family."

Pure, sweet schadenfreude!
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