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What with all the political half-truths and fictions being spread on the airwaves, you’d think TV stations would do their fact-checking before they run political ads. U.S. Representative Ed Perlmutter, who is campaigning to hold on to his 7th Congressional District seat in a race against Republican Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier, joins fellow Democratic Congresswoman Betsy Markey as a victim of blatantly wrong information used to drive voters to their opponents.
Citing truth tests by three Denver news outlets, 9News has pulled an ad that suggests Perlmutter’s vote for health-care reform was also a vote to grant convicted rapists access to Viagra. 9News deems the ad “false” and The Denver Post calls it a “whopper” (via the Post). The ad was paid for by the American Action Network, a group linked to several Republicans that has attacked Perlmutter before in a questionable commercial.
Colorado isn’t the only state in which television stations are yanking American Action Network ads. A spot attacking Congressman Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, was taken off the air by a Fox affiliate because it claimed his vote for health-care reform would force “jail time for anyone without coverage,” according to the Congressional Quarterly.