May 01, 2013 04:21 PM UTC

RNC Hits Bottom With Newtown Victim Video

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• by: Colorado Pols

As The Hill's Jonathan Easley reports:

The Republican National Committee (RNC) and Democratic National Committee (DNC) clashed Wednesday over a new RNC ad that the DNC says cruelly exploits the Newtown shootings. 

The ad, called "The First 100 Days," criticizes Obama on the failure of his legislative agenda, including gun control, so far in Congress. It features a voiceover saying that Obama’s agenda has “already suffered a string of defeats,” and a black and white photo of the president reaching to embrace Nicole Hockley, the distraught mother of a victim in the shooting massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.

Democratic National Committee spokesman Brad Woodhouse called the ad “disgraceful” in a tweet and “disgusting” in another. вЂ‹вЂ‹

Think Progress' Ian Millhiser:

Earlier today, the Republican National Committee released a one minute video gloating that President Obama has experienced a “string of defeats” during the first 100 days of his second term. Of course, the reason for these “defeats” is that the GOP retains the power to unilaterally block progress in the Senate through filibusters…

What is new, however, is that the RNC’s gloating video features [an] image [of] President Obama consoling Nicole Hockley, whose son Dylan was killed during the Newton massacre. Worse, this picture was taken shortly after a coalition of mostly Senate Republicans killed a bill that was intended to prevent more people from dying from gun violence. That’s what the Republican Party is gloating about when it brags that President Obama has experienced a “string of defeats.”

You can watch the Republican National Committee's ad by clicking here. According to The Hill, RNC spokesman Sean Spicer is defending the ad, saying the image of President Barack Obama consoling the mother of a child killed at Newtown, Connecticut came from an ABC video package that the RNC simply appropriated–"I don't think we control ABC," Spicer Tweeted. Clearly the implication is they didn't know who Obama was consoling.

Our response: who else would President Obama have been consoling in the last 100 days?

Folks, the "defeat" Obama suffered when background checks failed in the Senate last month, the "defeat" the RNC is celebrating in this ad featuring the mother of a Newtown victim, is also a defeat for these victims. Clearly the RNC is delighted to have inflicted said "defeat," hence the ad–it's just that their production "mistake," showing a Newtown victim's mother as an example of Obama's "defeats," casts their "victory" in an uncomfortable light.

At least, for the sake of common decency, we hope it does.