False flag attack ad
To the editor:
If our current senator, Marco Rubio, had footage of Val Demings saying something untoward, I suspect we would be seeing her on his attack ads. There is no such footage run in Rubio’s (false flag) smear campaign. Instead Rubio approved an ad using sheriff and police officers in their uniforms “misquoting” her.
When wearing the uniform of an officer of the law one is entitled to some respect. Because an officer of the law should be truthful. It is a slap in the face to our local law enforcement to have the GOP commandeer our respect for law enforcement in perpetrating a partisan lie. I hope the Floridian voters will share my distain for this tactic. I remember instead that it was Marco Rubio who attempted to aid Trump in an illegal and violent coup attempt by taking the floor of the Senate to overturn the valid election results of the voters in another state in the wee hours after the Jan. 6, 2020 riot/insurrection. Demings, on the other hand, has never been publicly involved in a criminal conspiracy, nor perpetrated a treasonous lying fraud.
According to a PolitiFact fact check, neither of two similar ads represented Demings’ words accurately — “Demings did not call abolishing the police ‘thoughtful,'” PolitiFact states.
“PolitiFact found that the ad misrepresented what Demings said when asked about a proposal in Minneapolis to dismantle the police. In the interview, Demings didn’t take a position on the measure, adding that she believed community leaders and law enforcement would collaborate to improve policing.
“The ad gave Demings’ words a very different spin. We rate it False,” PolitiFact states.
On the other hand you can look up the federal record and see Rubio attempting to undermine a free election while veterans and Capitol police officers’ blood was literally still on the floor nearby.
I have seen Val Demings and she is indeed Black and female. Hoping to link her as a faithful vote with the powerful (female) speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi, is silly in a climate where all legislative action has been deadlocked in partisanship. To tie her to the fringe elements in the post Floyd murder demonstrations as a police defunder is false. We do not need the trope “white folks should be scared that the Black folks will riot” as a political posture of any candidate. This ad is an insult to the intelligence of the voters, and it is particularly ugly in that Rubio is using uniformed officers to false flag this attack; that reeks despicably of dog whistle racism.
Officers of the law should be above reproach. They should not wiggle for the camera while in uniform supporting partisan/racist/misogynist ads. But most especially they should not lie. Many are the incarcerated today on the testimony of their local law enforcement. Is there a criminal defense attorney now in this state not screaming for retrial for his client at the judge’s doorstep? If an inmate was convicted with the testimony of a lying police officer, could he not get a new trial with footage of this tawdry display of racist mendacity by these local partisan cops? Really gentlemen. Have you no honor?
Ellen Starbird
Cape Coral