Terry McAuliffe is upset because a local Fox affiliate in Wisconsin won’t air his misleading ad about Bush “misleading” the American people.

DNC Chairman Terry McAuliffe responded with an attack on the decision to not run the ad: “Apparently Fox has changed its slogan from ‘We report, you decide’ to ‘we let Bush decide what we air.'”

Fox spokeswoman Irena Steffen in New York said the decision was not made at the national level.

“You would think a man in his position would know the difference between a local affiliate and a national news network,” she said.

Yeah, you’d think.

What a maroon. Here’s hoping that the Dems don’t come to their senses, and that they keep him as head of the DNC for a long, long time.

[Update at 1:13 PM PDT]

S-Train is upset with this post, and my apparent approval of the Fox affiliate’s judgment.

Like the Republicans ads won’t be misleading. Ain’t that the purpose? Mislead the people about your opponent so you can get votes. Oh those pious, honest Republicans…

…As long as I have been aware of politics, the Democrats and Republicans political ads during election time have been dubious to say the least.

Sure. So what? If Fox wants to do the same thing with a Republican ad, I’ll have no complaint, if it’s as bad, or even if it’s not.

I was approving the general principle of a media outlet finally standing up and saying “enough” to demogoguery, from any party. This just happened to be a particularly juicy topical example.

I don’t believe that television stations should be required to run political ads that they believe to be misleading. There’s enough diversity of the media that I have no sympathy for the notion that every outlet should have to run everything.

If a station manager wants to use some discretion, I say more power to them. Maybe it will elevate the political discourse a little, if both sides come to realize that they can’t get away with any slanderous lie they want just because they’re a political party.