President Obama's campaign on Thursday released its first TV ad of the 2012 election cycle, and it's a defense of his record on energy.
"Secretive oil billionaires attacking President Obama with ads fact checkers say are not tethered to the facts ..." Hmmm, wonder whom Team Obama could be talking about?
Something interesting about Obama's ad is that it's not just a defense of the president's energy policy — including its loan guarantees to green energy companies like the failed Solyndra — but it's also a defense of his ethics.
That self-same bankrupt Solyndra has been used by his Republican opponents to question his and his administration's ethical behavior.
But the ad's narrator isn't about to let such charges go unanswered:
"Independent watchdogs call this president's record on ethics 'unprecedented.' "
And to his critics, who say he has left the nation more dependent on foreign oil — especially given his decision to reject the Keystone pipeline project — Obama's ad makers have this message:
"For the first time in 13 years our dependence on foreign oil is below 50 percent."
Of course, part of the reason that was true was that demand fell off because of the weak economy, which isn't exactly helping the president on the re-election front. So his campaign might want to be careful about what it boasts about.
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