Last week Greg Sargent’s Plum Line detailed some of the falsehoods in the flood of third party ads produced by Carl Rove’s Crossroads group and by the Chamber of Commerce. Because of the furor over their funding – the undisclosed donors, the possibility of foreign contributors, etc. – the fact that these ads are chock full of blatant, egregious falsehoods had not received much attention earlier. The onslaught has now truly begun; third party ads have been flooding the airwaves (on some evenings I have seen the same ad over six times – and I don’t watch that much TV). Many of us were worried about what Citizens United would mean for our democracy; these ads, the ugly spawn of that decision, prove that we were more than right to be concerned.

One ad in particular centers around absurd claims that the Affordable Care Act cuts Medicare by 500 billion dollars – the ad has been directed at several Democrats with only slight variations. You can see some of the versions of the ad and get the real facts about its lies here (you can also see one such ad below the fold). Take a look at it and then compare it with the new Roy Blunt ad (also shown below the fold) – not too much difference, right?

Given Blunt’s past propensities for abusing the truth, I’m not surprised that he is putting out one more dishonest ad, nor am I surprised that the subject matter is Medicare. He is clearly hoping to stem the damage Carhanan did in their last debate when she not only brought up Roy’s past statements about Medicare, but confronted him with proof when he denied them:

Among other things, the Carnahan camp disputed Blunt’s apparent denial during the debate that he had ever said that Medicare shouldn’t have been created. Carnahan’s campaign sent out a number of links to numerous news accounts — including two videos (click here and here) — in which Blunt appeared to disparage the government health-care program for the elderly, voted for cuts or voted for a proposal to turn the program into a voucher system.

What better way to save face when you are caught in a lie, but to lie some more – hence this new Medicare ad. Of course, if you are Roy Blunt, your contempt for your constituents is so great that you don’t even bother to come up with something plausible – you simply crib from your Crossroads GPS pals and adapt their all-purpose lies to do your dirty work. After all, Carl Rove proved that if you tell a lie often enough, everyone will think it’s the truth.

Update: FiredUp! Missouri has video of a KMBC TV segment that factchecks the Blunt ad.

One of the Crossroads GPS ads, the new Blunt ad, and two videos of Blunt dissing Medicare can be found below the fold:

Crossroads GPS ad attacking Joe Sestak (PA):

New Roy Blunt ad:

Roy Blunt on Medicare:

And: