McCaskill Runs Questionable Ad...Again

Those who follow Missouri politics have surely noticed the spate of stories that hit today regarding what's being called "the Josh ad." Basically, the ad focuses on a young Iraq veteran named Josh Lansdale who claims that he didn't receive proper treatment from the VA.

As far as I can tell, there's no question that Mr. Lansdale is in fact an Iraq war veteran. What seems to be the problem is that he cannot provide any documentation that proves his claim of a lack of sufficient care from the VA hospital, particularly considering the VA's contention that Iraqi veterans are priority patients. More importantly, perhaps, is that the McCaskill campaign cannot provide any proof of steps they took to verify his story. If McCaskill had taken the appropriate steps, you can bet that no press agent worth her salt would allow these stories to run without getting that point across.

There's a problem with the ad as a question of policy as well. Let's assume for a moment that the Josh ad is accurate, and Mr. Lansdale did have to wait six months for treatment. That would be wrong, of course, our veterans should get everything they're entitled to as quickly as possible. But the larger question is, is this a systemic problem? There's no way to ensure that any government system is going to work perfectly every time. Unless there's some evidence of a greater problem that contradicts the VA's contention that Iraqi veterans receive priority treatment, the ad is misleading. Yes, Jim Talent doesn't wait six months for a doctor's appointment, but that's not relevant to the debate unless there's proof of a systemic problem.

Freesoiler of late has seemed like a veritable tome of McCaskill's gaffes and misleading statements in her current campaign. But let's get in the way-back machine to 2004 for a moment. You may remember the MDP's Job Interview ad. In this ad, Matt Blunt is interviewing for the job of Governor, and the interviewer highlights the reasons to vote against him. In the course of this, the interviewer says, and this is paraphrased, "Secretary of State...one job, running the elections," to imply that Blunt isn't qualified to be Governor. That might be a good point if it were, you know, true. The Secretary of State's office has six divisions, one of which is Elections. It stands to reason that Blunt had at least six jobs while he was Secretary of State, and in reality, a lot more. Now yes, "Job Interview" was a Democratic Party ad and they claimed that the phrase "one job" meant one of his jobs was running elections, not that it was his only job. Right, I'm not buying that. Nor am I buying that McCaskill would have changed anything had it been her ad rather than the MDP's.

There are serious questions about the factual accuracy of McCaskill's new Josh ad. Furthermore, there are serious questions about the verification process the McCaskill campaign went through, if there was any. These are not the actions of an honest, responsible public servant.