Here is some vanilla truth, and I invite anyone to prove me wrong: There is not one lousy, barely legal, loophole-slipping thing being done by Republicans that is not also being done by Democrats. (On the too-clever blogs, that would be RePIGlicans and DemoRATS.) To wit:
* Fundraising from anonymous
donors.
* Accepting support from fake
"citizens' groups" to create slush funds.
* Evading campaign-gift limits
by bundling donors.
Two seconds after one party figures out a way to sidestep the law, the other will follow closer than a tail on a dog.
So, Republicans and Democrats, get off your hypocritical high horses and, please, please, stop bull-shirting the voters. Talk about your plans, proposals and ideas, instead of throwing cow pies at the other guy.
Everyone says that he hates attack ads (but uses them because they work). They work because most of us don't have the time or ability to figure out which claims are clams and which are gems. That's something the media should do. This newspaper used to do it under the heading of Ad Watch, but it was labor-intensive. When staff cutbacks hit, we had to stop it.
Online, there's FactCheck.org, but it can't examine every race in every county and corner of America.
For local fact-checking, I looked at the race for Congress in Delaware County's 7th District, the seat vacated by Joe Sestak. Democrat Bryan Lentz and Republican Pat Meehan are slugging it out in a race too close to call. Their ads are not the worst, but typical.
An anti-Lentz ad claims that he voted for "a billion in new spending." Horrible!
It's true, but conveniently neglects to say that the increase also was approved by a majority of the Republicans who control the state Senate.
An anti-Meehan ad says that he wants to keep the tax cut for millionaires while Lentz wants tax cuts for the middle class, reduced deficits and balanced budgets.
Meehan actually wants tax cuts for everyone, not just the wealthy.
Lentz says that the Meehan-favored tax break will add $1 trillion to the deficit. But Lentz's retaining it for the middle class will cost even more. So much for balanced budgets.
Nationally, Democrats claim that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is buying ads (true) to support mainly Republicans (true) using money from overseas (that's illegal). When asked for proof, Dems tucked their donkey tails and headed for the hills.
For its part, the GOP, and the tea-party trunk that seems to be wagging the elephant, insists that Barack Obama is "anti-business."
The guy who propped up greedy investment firms, bailed out dim-witted banks and rescued incompetent General Motors is anti-business?
If true, I hope Obama starts hating the newspaper business.
We can use the money.
E-mail stubyko@phillynews.com or call 215-854-5977. For recent columns:
http://go.philly.com/byko.
