Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Irony Is Still Dead

So I was reading the print edition of the Rocky Mountain News during lunch, and there is this interesting story.

I live in Colorado's 7th Congressional district. It was just vacated by Bob Beauprez (R) who is now running for governor, so it's an open seat. And it's one of the few truly up-for-grabs races in the nation. Democratic candidate Ed Perlmutter currently has a very slight lead over Republican Rick O'Donnell, but of course that could change. And I'm glad I'll be voting in a race whose outcome isn't already predetermined.

But anyway, there's this 527 group running an attack ad against Perlmutter. In the ad, they accuse Perlmutter of having pushed for legislation defining services for illegal immigrants when he was a state Senator. There's only one slight problem. The legislation was for legal immigrants, not illegals.

Okay, so the ad was dishonest. It's hardly the only one out there. But here's the catch: The 527 who paid for the ad is called Americans for Honesty on Issues. Yes, that's really their name. And who could possibly create such an Orwellian group? Why none other than Bob J. Perry, the guy who bankrolled the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, the group which made all those scurrilous accusations against John Kerry which turned out to be false.

You just can't make this stuff up. I mean, if I sat down and tried to come up with the most amusingly ironic and disingenuous name for a group that produces blatanly false attack ads, I could do no better than Americans for Honesty on Issues.