Romney attack ad on crime is a pack of lies

The reputable Annenberg Fact Check website, which serves as a watchdog on the truth of charges and claims made by political candidates, has rather thoroughly torn apart Mitt Romney's ad here in Iowa attempting to make Mike Huckabee look soft on crime, and Romney tough.

Says the site:

Romney launched another negative ad in Iowa this week, where the Republican presidential candidate has been battling the new front-runner, Huckabee. This time, Romney attacks Huckabee's record on methamphetamine laws and the clemencies he granted as governor of Arkansas. We found that:

1)The ad says Romney "got tough on drugs like meth" while governor of Massachusetts, but the legislation he supported never passed, and his state's laws are much weaker than Arkansas'. Convicted meth dealers face both minimum and maximum prison terms in Arkansas that are four times longer than those in Massachusetts.

2)The ad misrepresents news articles, implying that they supported Romney's actions as governor when that's not what the news organizations said. One article, in fact, gave critical views of Romney's refusal to issue a pardon.

The ad, Annenberg points out, ignores two rather significant facts.

First, the Huckabee-supported law which, as the ad misleadingly points out, lowered the penalties for meth manufacturers still punished first-time offenders with minimum prison term of ten years and a fine of up to $25,000.

The "tough" law Romney tried and failed to get the Massachusetts legislature to adopt involved a minimum of two and a half years, and a fine of no more than $10,000! Huckabee was, in fact, far tougher on meth manufacturers and sellers than was Romney!

Secondly, the Romney ad ignores the fact that the Huckabee supported law was, in fact, drafted by prosecutors in an attempt to help deal with catastrophic overcrowding in Arkansas prisons!

Mitt, I'm sorry... but lying about Mike Huckabee's record just isn't very nice.