by Tom Piatak – Taki’s Magazine

Last week at NRO, cub reporter Stephen Spruiell announced that he had found what might be “the most deceptive ad” of the 2008 race, a Barack Obama spot blaming free trade for job losses at the Delphi plant in Warren, Ohio. According to Spruiell, the ad was deceptive because “foreign competition did not drive the company to eliminate American jobs” and “workers were offered … generous buyouts and early retirement packages.” Rather than blame foreign competition, Spruiell blamed Americans–specifically Americans belonging to labor unions–and held up as his bright, shining model Honda, which assembles cars in rural Ohio without any union. Spruiell also blamed another American, Steven Schuyler, the former Delphi employee featured in Obama’s ad, because he did not disclose in the ad that he, too, had received a buyout from Delphi and because he is “characterized by bitterness that things had to change, and rank dishonesty about why they did.”