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The “Understands” ad, by Obama super PAC Priorities USA, insinuates that Mitt Romney is responsible for the death of the wife of former GST Steel employee Joe Soptic, five years before she died, simply because Soptic lost his job (and thus his health insurance) at a plant owned by Bain Capital. Conventional wisdom has it that the ad is both despicable and false. The question to be answered is: Was it coordinated with either the Obama campaign or the Democratic National Committee? Federal law typically treats a super-PAC ad coordinated with an official campaign or political party committee as an...

Debbie Downer, aka Debbie Wasserman-Schulz, was interviewed by John Roberts on Fox News Sunday. Roberts asked her about the Priorites USA ad that implies that Mitt Romney caused a woman to die from cancer. In the ad Joe Soptic says “When Mitt Romney and Bain closed the plant, I lost my health care, and my family lost their health care,” Soptic says in the minute-long spot. “And a short time after that, my wife became ill . . . she passed away in 22 days.” There you go. Mitt Romney killed her. Never mind that Romney left Bain in 1999. Never mind...

The Obama campaign has been caught in a lie over Joe Soptic, the man in the now infamous "Romney killed my wife" ad put out by Priorities USA. After the real timeline of events caused scrutiny of the PAC, the Obama re-election team claimed to have had no knowledge of Soptic's story. Deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter told CNN she didn't know the facts behind Soptic's story. “I don’t know the facts about when Mr. Soptic’s wife got sick or the facts about his health insurance,” she said. Robert Gibbs echoed that sentiment when he told reporters on Air Force...

Priorities USA Action, an Obama super PAC, released an attack ad this week implicating Mitt Romney in the reckless homicide of the wife of an employee Romney never met.  The ad blames Bain Capital's decision to close a GST Steel plant for the cancer death of the spouse of a former employee who no longer had health insurance.The ad features Joe Soptic, the former employee, who tells the audience:I don't think Mitt Romney understands what he's done to people's lives by closing the plant. I don't think he realizes that people's lives completely changed.  When Mitt Romney and Bain closed...

A SuperPAC supporting Obama is under fire for airing an ad in which a steelworker accused Romney of making decisions that led to his wife's death. The Obama campaign has kept its distance from the ad — but it made the same charge, in a screenshot that appeared in an official Obama campaign slideshow.

The Washington Post seemed to honor Obama-commercial star Joe Soptic in the news section Thursday. Nia-Malika Henderson’s article was headlined “For anti-Romney ads, Democrats call Joe the Steelworker.” The subhead: "New spot seems to tie his wife's death to plant's closure after Bain took over." Online, the headline was "Forget Joe the Plumber -- Meet Joe the Steelworker." The Post couldn't find space for the Soptic story on Wednesday, even though Henderson interviewed him on Tuesday. Just like with the David Plouffe-scores-100-grand story this week, the Post headlines downplayed that Henderson found more details that make the Soptic ad look...

Oops? President Barack Obama's re-election campaign washed its hands Wednesday of an independent group's vicious (and misleading) ad effectively blaming Mitt Romney for the death of a laid-off steelworker's wife from cancer. Campaign officials flatly denied any knowledge of the facts in the case—but it turns out the widower told the same story on an Obama campaign conference call in mid-May. (The Obama campaign responded late in the day: See update below). "We have nothing, no involvement, with any ads that are done by Priorities USA. We don't have any knowledge of the story of the family," Obama campaign spokeswoman...

Representatives from the Obama campaign tried to distance themselves on Wednesday from a new ad released by the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA that links actions taken by Bain Capital to the death of former steelworker Joe Soptic’s wife. Aboard Air Force One, campaign spokesperson Jen Psaki told reporters that the campaign had “no involvement with any ads that are done by Priorities USA.” “We don’t have any knowledge of the story of the family,” Psaki said when asked about Soptic’s story. On CNN’s Early Start Wednesday morning, Obama for America Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter also denied that she...

...played a role in the death of Ilyona Soptic at age 55. The ad features Joe Soptic, 62, of Missouri, who lost his job when GST Steel of Kansas City—owned by Bain and other investors for eight years—was closed. As melancholy music plays, Mr. Soptic says that when the plant closed, he and his family lost their health-care coverage and "a short time after that, my wife became ill." Her illness was diagnosed five years later. "I don't think Mitt Romney understands what he's done to people's lives by closing the plant," Mr. Soptic says in the ad. The steel...

The Obama supporting Super PAC Priorities USA yesterday introduced us to Joe Soptic. Mitt Romney killed his wife. Except it is complete and utter crap. Mitt Romney and Bain Capital bought GST Steel at some point. Romney left day to day operations of Bain in 1999. Thereafter, Bain offered Joe Soptic a buy out and he refused. Eventually the steel plant went out of business and Joe went on the unemployment line. That happened in 2001. In 2002 or 2003, Mrs. Soptic injured her rotator cuff and left her job. She lost her insurance. In 2006, she was diagnosed with...

Just when we thought the smear campaign against Mitt Romney could get no worse, it does. I am almost at a loss for words to describe the lies that are now being told about Mitt Romney. Ridiculous and despicable are the only terms that really come close. First, we have Harry Reid and his lies about having a source who told him Mitt Romney didn't pay taxes for 10 years. Reid says it is up to Romney to prove the allegation false. That was bad enough. Now we have Priorities USA, a Super Pac supporting Barack Obama, publishing an ad...

Chutzpah overload in full effect: President Obama's sleazy super-PAC, run by his former White House spokesman Bill Burton, just released an ad accusing GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney of causing the cancer death of a steelworker's wife. It's not just a slanderous and false attack. It's a foolish attempt to camouflage the administration's massive jobs death toll, politicized pension plundering and Big Labor bailout cronyism. And it will backfire big time because the thousands and thousands of true victims of Obama's economic wreckage are speaking up and fighting back. Let's dispense with the "Romney = murderer" meme first. The warped...

No description at YouTube, so my write up:CNN's Brianna Kielar spoke with Joe Soptic, a former steelworker featured in a new pro-Obama super PAC ad who was laid off in 2001 when Bain Capital closed the company he had worked at for a reported 30 years. Without directly accusing Soptic and Priorities USA of being despicable liars, CNN lets its reporting call them out as despicable liars. Soptic told CNN his wife had her own health insurance at her own job when he was laid off. Soptic said his wife quit her job a year or two later due to...

A new attack ad by a pro Obama super PAC called Priorities USA features a laid-off steel worker who essentially blames Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for the death of his wife from cancer.