New Hateful Romney Ad: Obama Declared 'War on Religion' and He's Like the USSR

Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee have a new ad up on the air. I'll just provide some of the details and hold my comments until you've had a chance to read them. I'm not providing the video here but you can see it, if you truly must, at the link above. The narration begins:

"President Obama used his healthcare plan to declare war on religion, forcing religious institutions to go against their faith."

First of all, that claim is completely false. But that's a topic for another discussion.

Then Romney brought up Pope John Paul II's heroic efforts in speaking out against the Soviet Union. The narrator then asked:

"When religious freedom is threatened, who do you want to stand with?"

Let's try to assess this calmly. So, Romney accused President Obama of having "declare[d] war on religion." Furthermore, Romney stated that religious freedom is threatened today, and essentially compared President Obama to the Soviet Union, a murderous dictatorship that, among numerous other terrible crimes, brutally suppressed its citizens' ability to practice their religious faith.

I'm honestly having trouble fully expressing how angry I am about this ad. This is not the first hateful thing the Romney campaign has done, having race-baited time and again throughout this campaign.

I've asked when the media will call the Romney campaign out on its racism. Now it's time to ask whether the media will call out Romney for seeking to divide people based on religion, and for painting Barack Obama as no different than the Soviet Union under Brezhnev.

I won't say this "war on religion" ad reaches a new low, because that would be a very high bar to clear (no pun intended). But it certainly reaches a different kind of low. Mitt Romney needs to answer for it.

The American people need to recognize this hatemonger for what he is.