North Carolina Senator Kay Hagan's -- shall we say -- issues defending her voting record have been well-documented, so it's no surprise that she's turning to dishonest commercials in a flailing effort to save her political hide. But I'm not sure that anyone expected her to lean on a line of attack quite this ridiculous, via the Free Beacon:
Tillis has attacked Hagan for her support of Obamacare, but the ad suggests these attacks are hypocritical because Tillis once described Obamacare as “a great idea.” “Politicians, these days you’ve gotta watch ‘em close—real close,” says the narrator in Hagan’s ad, before playing a clip of Tillis saying “it’s a great idea” in reference to Obamacare. “That’s right. Thom Tillis called Obamacare ‘a great idea,’” the narrator continues. “So Thom Tillis thinks he can attack Kay Hagan over something he calls ‘a great idea’? Watch close, seems Thom Tillis wants it both ways.”
And now, the context:
The Tillis quote was taken from his February 6 appearance on the Bill LuMaye radio show. You can check out the full audio here. The quote in question takes place around the 9-minute mark. Here’s what Tillis said, in the context of broader GOP efforts to repeal Obamacare: “The majority of the stuff that is in Obamacare is bad, because it’s not fiscally sustainable. It’s a great idea that can’t be paid for.” He went on to describe Obamacare as a “policy that’s creating as many problems as it fixes in terms of healthcare,” and “creating the most devastating problem of a deficit that we can’t afford.”
Tillis is clearly an Obamacare opponent -- unlike Hagan, who voted for the law, repeated its false promises, and-- like a trained partisan automaton -- opposed Republican attempts to restore those pledges. So within the last few days, we've seen one Democrat fretting that some of Obamacare's least attractive qualities have yet to "hit the fan," while another laughably tries to beat up on her Republican competitor over...a sentence fragment quasi-praising the disastrous law she's supported at every turn. Allahpundit snarks: "Essentially, she’s trying to maneuver Tillis around into being the pro-ObamaCare candidate so that she can posture as a quasi-anti one. Democrats promised us that O-Care would turn the world upside down, and so it has." Here's the ad. Feel free to point and laugh at Kay Hagan: