Yesterday retired Air Force Lt. Col. Wendy Rogers, the GOP candidate for Arizona's 9th congressional district, released a web and TV ad that begins with the ISIS video showing the beheading of American James Foley. It's a short cut, only a couple seconds, and doesn't show the final act, but Rogers caught a deserved shitload of local and national criticism for exploiting the murder of Foley, who was a well-liked teacher here in Phoenix. As I wrote, even readers of the Arizona Republic, not a liberal group by any means, were unanimous in condemning Rogers. One wonders what Mr. Foley's parents would think.
The point lie of the campaign ad, of course, was that Democrats are weak on national security (yes, Bush-Cheney was sooo wonderful), Obama is responsible for ISIS's growth, and Arizona Rep. Kyrsten Sinema parrots the president's "liberal agenda." It's her fault that James Foley and thousands of others have been murdered. Even worse, the terrorists are coming for us, but Wendy Rogers will protect you! The ad doesn't mention the deaths in Arizona from guns, where we're in the Top Ten, and if Rogers really wants to protect me, that gun thing is sorta more likely than a terrorist decapitation.
Smacking of big-time desperation, the ad's nauseous opening clearly lost Rogers support among her party (even the national GOP said it went too far), and Sinema's victory seems more secure now than originally projected. When the controversy erupted yesterday, Rogers' spokesguy James Harris said the ad is appropriate, since it is "fair use of current-affairs scenes to highlight differences between the candidates." He or the ad don't explain that difference, at least from a policy angle. But within 24 hours, probably after reading lotsa comments on her Facebook page with words like "despicable" sprinkled throughout, even from Republicans, the Rogers campaign issued a press release, saying they've edited out the few beheading seconds "to maintain focus on Kyrsten Sinema's votes."
That "focus" on her opponent's voting record showed up today as insects in your scalp. Seriously, Rep. Sinema had said in a TV interview that Congress is less popular than head lice, which is true, so Wendy Rogers tweeted and wrote on her Facebook page:
Yesterday, Kyrsten Sinema compared herself to head lice. The enemy is at our gates while Sinema spouts vapid, cutesy nonsense.
That's keeping the focus on Sinema's votes, with a juvenile lie. Compare her to a nasty bug and link that to terrorists at "our gates," i.e., the border. She's moved into
Trent Franks territory, where crazy ISIS beheaders are amassing at the border. Next they'll be carrying Ebola. Because Obama.