McCain has finally released his Rezko ad:
Too bad for McCain that we’ve already been through the Rezko deal and most of the points he’s trying to make in his ad are bunk.
While the ad is technically correct as it’s worded that Rezko bought a piece of land that Obama couldn’t afford since the seller wanted to sell both pieces together (Obama bought the house, Rezko bought the other land), the ad leaves the impression that Rezko helped Obama buy his house, which isn’t true – Rezko only bought the adjacent land that Obama couldn’t afford, but didn’t pay anything for the house. One could argue that this constitues “helping Obama buy a million dollar mansion” but this is admitadely stretching the understood meaning of the comment in the ad.
There is also one more slight problem. The “$14 million in favors” that Obama supposedly did for Rezko – consisting of Obama writing favorable letters about Rezko which helped lead to him getting funding to build some apartments – occured in 1998. The housing deal, however, took place in 2005.
However, McCain’s ad clearly suggests that the housing deal lead to the $14 million in deals:
One of his “biggest fundraisers” helped him buy his million-dollar mansion.
Purchasing part of the property he couldn’t afford.
From Obama, Rezko got “political favors” including “14 million from taxpayers.”
Now, he’s a convicted felon, facing jail.
So, not only does the McCain ad get the order of events wrong, clearly insinuating that the home deal led to the $14 million in favors, when the $14 million issue with Rezko actually took place 7 years before the house deal, but the ad also insinuates that Rezko is a convicted felon because of this deal (note the “now” as if the fact that he’s a convicted felon is a consequence of the political favors).
So this ad takes some real facts (Rezko and Obama joining in a deal so Obama could buy a house) but then twists them to suggest three clear falsehoods: That Rezko helped Obama buy the actual mansion itself, that this purchase led to political favors, and these favors led to Rezko being convicted of a felony. It’s pretty bad.
As for whether they were actually favors, it is unclear whether anyone asked Obama to write the letters. If Obama wrote the letters unprompted, the argument that they constituted “favors” becomes much harder to make.
