Jon Stewart starts campaign to save Betty White from Obama

All of "The Golden Girls" have died on President Obama's watch, and a new "Daily Show" attack ad against Obama reveals how Republicans can retaliate against a recent Romney smear ad and save Betty White at the same time.

A hard-hitting attack ad should be met with another hard-hitting attack ad, and Jon Stewart believes the pro-Obama ad practically accusing Mitt Romney of murdering a steel worker's wife should be met with an ad that is just as ridiculous. Disappointed at the Republicans' weak response to the Priorities USA ad, he and "The Daily Show" staff put together an ad with a little more kick to it.

The gist of the anti-Obama ad: America has to vote for Romney in order to save Betty White. It really is that simple. America cannot afford to lose its last "Golden Girl" [sic].

But how did it get to the extreme of pointedly insinuating that the president of the United States was responsible for the deaths of "The Golden Girls" and that he had it in for the sole remaining member of the cast, Betty White?

This time, it started on the left...

The pro-Obama ad linked Bain Capital's buy-out of a steel plant to a woman's death. According to the ad, Mitt Romney, one-time CEO of Bain Capital, was involved in the steel plant's acquisition. Therefore, they -- Romney and Bain -- were responsible for the plant being shut down, the man losing his job, his pension, and his benefits. The woman died just weeks after being diagnosed with cancer.

The implication is that because of the lack of health care, the woman died. By extension, Bain Capital and Romney's cold dealings that shut the plant down were the root of it.

However, what the ad does not say is that there is a time lapse. The steel worker lost his job in 2002. His wife died in 2006. Romney reportedly left Bain in 1999 to go work on the Salt Lake City Olympics. In short, time periods, dates, events don't add up to what the attack was insinuating.

When Stewart ran the segment, he kept looking for conservative outrage, but all he kept getting were words like "desperate." A liberal Super PAC insinuates that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee is nigh unto a murderer and the best retaliation is what amounts to a verbal shrug.

So Stewart decided to show them how someone a bit tougher would respond. "Fight fire with fire," he said. "You need to step up."

The ad features a narrator lamenting the fact that Obama promised "change" but the only thing America has seen is dead "Golden Girls." The video clip showed black-and-white portraits of Estelle Getty, Bea Arthur, and Rue McClanahan with the word "Deceased" dramatically stamped in red.

"Since Barack Obama became president," the ad says, "we've lost 75 percent of our 'Golden Girls.'" For good measure, the ad shows a portrait of Dixie Carter, adding, "...and one 'Designing Woman'."

There is a quick shot of the operations room where Obama and his staff famously watched the raid that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden.

The narrator then invites the viewer to vote for Romney so Obama "can't finish the job." These words coincide with a still photo of Betty White caught in mid-scream.

The next scene is White in an interview, saying she's "scared to death," quickly followed by a photo of her standing with President Obama, hands clasped in a praying position, her facial expression reflecting a moment of imploring.

The ad ends with the narrator telling us that it was paid for by "Americans In Favor Of Keeping Betty White Alive" and adding a quick disclaimer that White had nothing to do with the making of the faux ad.

Ridiculous? Of course. And it was meant to be. But its content with its insinuations that the president was somehow responsible for the demise of three of "The Golden Girls" (and Carter of "Designing Women"), not to mention that he likely used an elite special operations military unit to carry out his nefarious plans and was after the remaining living star of the old NBC sitcom, is just as ridiculous as the implications suggested by the anti-Romney ad wherein the unemployed steel worker lost his wife due to events orchestrated by Mitt Romney and the company he used to run, Bain Capital.

Unfortunately, most won't see Stewart's slam of the Priorities USA ad. That may be the saddest part of the story: That those seeing the Romney-as-murderer-by-association ad will see it as true and not recognize it as a ridiculous twisting of condensed circumstances.

There is also one unavoidable difference between the video clips: Unlike Stewart's mock attack ad on Obama in an effort to save the perfectly safe Betty White, there is nothing remotely amusing about the Super PAC attack ad on Mitt Romney.

Watch the "Golden Girls Attack Ad" video from "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart":

(photo credit: David Shankbone, Creative Commons)