| The most truthless political campaign ads the last couple of years have been, beyond question, the campaign run by Michigan's Monty Burns to maintain his monopoly on bridges to Canada. Each time his company has paid for a new set of ads, it's filled with half-truths, distortions, and outright lies. They're invariably flagged for flagrant fouls from The Michigan Truth Squad, and even if you have problems with that outfit's work it's still fairly substantial that they don't seem capable of releasing an ad that doesn't distort the truth in some profound way. Their latest ads get yet another flagrant foul call from them, matter of fact. This is all beyond the simple question of whether "the people" should decide on another bridge to Canada, or whether that's not something we hold elections every two years to decide ... we choose people to represent our interests and in that spirit make decisions on our behalf about stuff like bridges to foreign countries. The question that has to be raised at some point is why Michigan media outlets continue to take advertising money for this stuff. It's absurd. If you worked in one of their news departments and aired this kind of crap unfiltered through the prism of reality and facts, your boss would be justified in firing you for going to lengths to mislead viewers. Yet, it doesn't appear to be all that difficult for the Maroun family to buy ad time. At some point, what needs to happen here is for media outlets that take money to air factually inaccurate advertising need to get hit with pushback. It's one thing to encourage a robust exchange of ideas leading up to an election. It's another thing to take money for the purposes of misinforming the voting public. |
