October 14, 2015 11:25 AM UTC

Stay Classy, Ted Harvey (Chris Stevens' Grave Edition)

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• by: Colorado Pols

WEDNESDAY UPDATE: Vanity Fair’s Tina Nguyen reporting, the ad in question (below) aired last night, complete with the misspelling of “Libya” that Stop Hillary PAC pulled down yesterday afternoon and replaced on Youtube. What a waste of money:

[T]he more that anti-Hillaryites repeat the phrase Hillary lied about Benghazi, the more that the word “lie,” and various permutations thereof: “lied,” “liar,” and most important, “lying,” get stuck in an infinite mental feedback loop.

That’s the only plausible reason that this ad, run by the Stop Hillary PAC during Tuesday night’s Democratic primary debates, spelled Libya “Lybia.”

(They also could have been thinking about labias.)

How much did @StopHillaryPAC spend on #Benghazi ad during #DemDebate? Should've spent a few bucks for a spellchecker pic.twitter.com/8E3V0xbJg0

— Rachel Stohl (@rachelstohl) October 14, 2015

The word you’re looking for is “oof.”

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UPDATE #2: Looks like Stop Hillary PAC has pulled down the ad featuring a prominent misspelling of the word “Libya.” Thankfully, we had the foresight to download it for posterity:

This is why you proof, and proof, and proof again.

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UPDATE: In a fundraising email in support of this ad, former Colorado Sen. Ted Harvey’s Stop Hillary PAC claims they are spending $125,000 to air it during tonight’s Democratic presidential debate on CNN. The ad reportedly played on CNN once or twice earlier today as well. Harvey proudly boasted in April that Stop Hillary PAC had brought over $1.4 million in the prior year–but given reports that the group only spends about 12% of its haul on actual work, maybe this is all they could spare?

With your help, we’re spending $125,000 to air this ad during the debate…and strike Hillary when she’s vulnerable.

Hillary Clinton must be held accountable for her lies and fatal judgement. Stop Hillary PAC is the only organization who’s sole purpose is defeating Hillary Clinton, and this commercial is the first step of many that we will take to guarantee she is not our next Commander in Chief.

We are airing this commercial during the Democrat debate so we can have the biggest impact, but as you can imagine it’s not cheap. CNN charges a hefty sum to air commercials during the debate, and we need your help to afford the nearly insurmountable fees.

It’s a nice gig if you can get it, folks.

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Politico’s Eliza Collins reports on a shocking new ad airing from the Stop Hillary PAC, whose chairman as our readers know is former Colorado Sen. Ted Harvey:

The Stop Hillary PAC is out with a new ad, set to air during the Democratic debate Tuesday night, that shows the grave of Chris Stevens, the U.S. ambassador killed in Benghazi, Libya.

The ad which is titled “I’d like to Ask,” also shows photographs of the four Americans who were killed during Benghazi attacks…

“I’d like to hear why you silenced the Benghazi whistleblower,” the video says as a photograph of Sean Smith, a State Dept. IT technician, fills the screen.

“But Mrs. Clinton, I can’t,” the voice says as the video shows Stevens’s photograph. “What difference does it make?” The screen then fills with Stevens’ grave.

To be fair, we’re not completely sure that this is really Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens’ headstone–it could be some kind of Photoshopped mock-up? That we think would be at least somewhat preferable to the Stop Hillary PAC having actually gone to the cemetery where Ambassador Stevens is buried, and taken a photo of the man’s headstone for a political ad.

Good Lord, people.

Even with that benefit of the doubt, this ad is totally ridiculous. Numerous investigations into the Benghazi attacks, including Republican congressional investigations, have cleared Hillary Clinton and high-level Obama administration officials of wrongdoing. The Benghazi attacks have been hyped out of all earthly proportion ever since they occurred in 2012 in the middle of that year’s presidential race, and Republicans appear totally unable to let the matter drop despite the overwhelming evidence their own investigations have produced showing there’s nothing to keep prattling on about.

Oh, and one more thing, Sen. Harvey: could you please learn how to spell “Libya?”

Oops! Maybe they can get that corrected before this ad runs on CNN during tonight’s debate.

Ted Harvey’s Stop Hillary PAC was profiled in Politico back in January along with a large number of other so-called “Scam PACs”–groups that collect huge sums of money ostensibly for political campaigns, while offering little to no actual programmatic justification for their existence. Other than salaries paid to the PAC’s employees, of course. According to that report, “Scam PACs” including Stop Hillary PAC spent around 12% of their income on actual public-facing work product like this ad.

Perhaps next time, maybe they’ll hire a producer with an ounce of common decency. Or at least a spell-checker.