Wetterling molests the truth, take 2
Star Tribune reporter Eric Black finds Patty Wetterling's advertisement seeking to capitalize on the Foley scandal lacking in veracity. Black writes:
Patty Wetterling's latest TV ad, in which she calls for "the immediate expulsion of any congressman involved in a crime or coverup" in the Mark Foley congressional page scandal exaggerates the known facts in the case.Last week Black also deconstruced another Wetterling attack ad that is still running:"It shocks the conscience," the ad for the Sixth District Democratic candidate begins. "Congressional leaders have admitted covering up the predatory behavior of a congressman who used the Internet to molest children."
No member of Congress has admitted covering up evidence of salacious e-mails and instant messages that Foley sent to teenage congressional pages.
At the time the ad began airing, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert and other GOP leaders were not even acknowledging that they should have done more to investigate when they first learned of a Foley e-mail to a former page.
Hastert apologized on Thursday that "this has happened" and took "responsibility" but he still has not specified anything that he believes he did wrong in the matter, let alone engaged in a coverup.
Republicans, including Wetterling's opponent, state Sen. Michele Bachmann, have accused Wetterling of "rushing to judgment" in the ad by asserting that a coverup was already proven and admitted before investigators could bring out the facts.
Wetterling campaign manager Corey Day defended the language of the ad, saying that while none of the congressional leaders have said "I admit to a coverup," they have acknowledged the facts that make it clear that a coverup has occurred.
"It's been known for at least a year (that Foley had sent an inappropriate e-mail to a former page) and nothing was done about it," Day said. "No investigation. Zero."When you have a 52-year-old congressman sending suggestive e-mails to a 16-year-old boy, and the leadership is told about it and does nothing, that is a coverup. I don't know what else you call it. If the Republicans want to split hairs on this and they want to say that's not a coverup, go ahead. Fine with me. If that's not a coverup, call it what you will."
The term "coverup," in the context of past scandals, has referred to actions taken to conceal evidence of a crime. According to Webster's dictionary, a failure to do what duty requires should be called "nonfeasance." To date, congressional leaders have not admitted even to that.
A Patty Wetterling for Congress TV ad that began airing Tuesday leaves out a key fact about a proposed tax plan. The missing fact is so relevant that the ad creates a false impression.Having transformed herself into an advocate of "child safety" out of the fire of her family tragedy, Patty Wetterling has worked a second transformation. She has turned herself into a lying political hack.
The ad also attributes a position to Wetterling's opponent, state Sen. Michele Bachmann, that Bachmann says she has not fully embraced.The Wetterling campaign is simultaneously complaining that another ad released this week by a Bachmann ally, the National Republican Congressional Committee, misstates Wetterling's position on taxes.
The Ad
The Wetterling ad asserts that Bachmann favors imposing a nationwide 23 percent sales tax on all purchases, even cars and homes, and suggests this contradicts Bachmann's claim that she favors lower taxes.
The omission
The ad refers to a proposal known as the "fair tax" that has been around in Congress since 1999 and currently has 60 co-sponsors in the House.
It would indeed impose a 23 percent federal sales tax .
But its advocates say that this sales tax would have a positive effect.
It would raise an amount equal to all existing federal income and payroll taxes, allowing them to be eliminated.
Wetterling's ad doesn't mention that the sales tax would replace those taxes.
Many things about the fair tax are in dispute, including whether a 23 percent national sales tax would raise enough revenue to replace the income and payroll taxes. Fair-tax critics also argue that the plan would shift the federal tax burden from the wealthy to middle-income taxpayers, a charge repeated in a Wetterling news release.
A study by the Treasury Department concluded that the plan would give the richest and the poorest households a tax break and that everyone else would get a hike.
But the Wetterling ad invites viewers to believe that if Bachmann had her way, they would be burdened with a big new federal sales tax, without disclosing that the plan also includes the elimination of current taxes.
Second problem
The second problem with the ad is that Bachmann has not taken a clear position in favor of the fair tax proposal.
She's not against it. She has said the federal tax system is "totally broken" and "in need of a complete overhaul." She has contemplated the fair tax, and spoken with its chief congressional sponsor, and she says the proposal is "worthy of debate."
The Minnesota Republican platform also calls for replacing the current income tax system with a "national sales tax or a flat tax."
But in her current campaign, Bachmann emphasizes that she would vote to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent and push for the complete elimination of capital gains taxes, inheritance taxes and the alternative minimum tax.
Wetterling campaign manager Corey Day says the totality of Bachmann's record shows she would vote for the national sales tax, noting that in 2000, during her first campaign for the state Senate, Bachmann did clearly advocate replacing all state income taxes with a higher sales tax.
John Binkowski, the Independence Party nominee in the Sixth District race, openly favors the 23 percent sales tax as a replacement for income and payroll taxes.
Wetterling response
Wetterling declined to be interviewed for this report.
Day defended the decision to leave out the income tax and payroll tax elements of the fair tax plan by saying that those elements were acknowledged in the news release that the campaign sent out and in the factual backup for the ad published on the campaign website.
The first TV ad from the national GOP group aired this week repeats one of the misleading claims made in a series of fliers it sent to Sixth District voters last week. It portrays Wetterling as opposing making President Bush's tax cuts permanent, but she actually has called for keeping all cuts in place except those aimed at the top 1 percent of households.
The Bachmann campaign also aired its second ad of the year this week, touting her state Senate record of favoring lower state taxes.
The factual claims in the ad are accurate. A Wetterling news release complained about omissions, such as the fact that Bachmann voted for the bill that added 75 cents a pack to the cost of cigarettes. Gov. Tim Pawlenty called it a "health impact fee" to avoid calling it a tax.
