The Cold, Dark Heart Of Joe Soptic

I am sorry for the loss of Mr. Soptic’s wife.  I am sorrier still for the heart-wrenching manner of her death.

Mr. Soptic’s grief has changed him and it reveals him.

One can be certain he has been paid handsomely to spew lies about his wife’s death for the sole purpose of elevating the image of a president undeserving of his demented loyalty.

He has lost his wife in pieces over a long period of time.  The manner in which he has chosen to retell her loss is reprehensible.  I say it is reprehensible because his lust for money to repeat damned lies overshadows the needs of a country that can no longer bear the burden of a president who possesses uncommon incompetence.

Mr. Soptic is standing in a forest of sorrow and has lost his way.

The scurrilousness of his charge that Mitt Romney is somehow responsible for his wife’s death is without measure.

The advertisement in which Mr. Soptic appears was released on Tuesday morning.  By early evening, it had been scrutinized by the press, in particular CNN, and roundly panned as false.  Not only was Romney no longer in charge of day-to-day decisions at Bain by the time the steel plant closed down, but Soptic’s wife actually died in 2006, nearly five years after the original layoff.

When Soptic was contacted by CNN, he admitted that his wife had actually continued to have insurance of her own after he was laid off from his steelworker job, and only lost her coverage more than a year later, when she left her own job because of an injury to her rotator cuff.  What the ad had portrayed as cause-and-effect was a feeble, nonexistent connection.  In a word, disgraceful.

CNN exposed the irredeemable demagoguery of this vicious attack, but the wisdom of the voters, come November, will finish what they started.

Romney spokesman Ryan Williams issued this statement:

“President Obama’s allies continue to use discredited and dishonest attacks in a contemptible effort to conceal the administration’s deplorable economic record.  After 42 months of unemployment above 8 percent, it is clear that the President and his campaign do not have a rationale for reelection.  He focused on health care instead of the economy, he hasn’t been able to pass a budget through Congress, he hasn’t been able to cut the deficit like he promised and he’s done little to change the way Washington works.  Mitt Romney has a Plan for a Stronger Middle Class that will jumpstart the economy and bring back millions of jobs.”