Critical Review of: “This Years Attack Ads Cut Deeper” by Molly Ball
In her most recent blog on www.Politico.com, author Molly Ball looks into the recent trend of increasingly negative campaign ads making incredibly personal negative statements about candidates. While mudslinging is often a simple fact of life in modern politics, as Ball points out, this year “Candidates have been accused of wanting to gas house pets, inject young girls with dangerous drugs, let men beat their wives and assist child molesters.” She has taken time to investigate many of the claims that have been made by canidates and party supporters and done an excelent job of staying objective and non-partisan. She also takes time to point out however that while a claim may be outragious that doesn’t always mean that it is a complete lie, instead that there are often half or partial truths involved in almost all of them. In the case of Rick Perry and the the “Daughters” ad where supporters of his opponent, Bill White, accuse Gov. Perry of wanting to inject all 11 and 12 year old girls with experimental STD vaccines to make a personal profit. While Perry did push for a bill to provide HPV Vaccines for 11-12 year-old girls, discribing the vaccine as an “expirimental” drug is more than a bit of a stretch. The accusations of Perry seeking personal gain through these vaccines are also based on speculation and monitarty connections to providers have yet to be proven.
Mrs. Ball also notes that with these wild claims often follows an unexpected backlash, after all there has to come a point when common sense kicks in and voters realize the rediculousness of the ads. I really enjoyed the common sense outlook of this blog and the authors objective appoach to it, she takes time to point out accusations across the party spectrum. To end the piece she leaves us with a question, as November gets closer you have to wonder is it only going to get worse or will the American pubic finally call for an end to this negitative and corrosive practice? I would love to say that we will finally take a reasonable stance in politics, but I just don’t thnk were that ready to give up our tabloid-esk love of politics.
Read the Blog at: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1010/43698.html
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