The ad causing the controversy.

The Salem News managed to post a copy of the Tierney ad to youtube.

Here it is.

The Salem news column cited in the ad can be found here.

First, a columnist saying something and "newspapers call Bill Hudak" is far from the same thing.

Second, this ad viciously distorts what some of these columns say. The impression is that Nelson Benton from the Salem News said Bill Hudak is toxic. What did he actually say?

Here it is:

Boxford's Bill Hudak appears to be the frontrunner in the race for the Republican nomination for the 6th District seat in Congress. But some early missteps — a lawn sign comparing President Obama to Osama bin Laden and comments suggesting the president might not have been born in the U.S. — have turned him toxic in the view of some.

Same thing? Not if you have a brain. The piece doesn't really take a position on whether Hudak is toxic or not.

All of the other 'newspapers say" quotes are from far left Globe columnist Scot Lehigh, who most thinking people disagree with on a regular basis. Lehigh is the type who doesn't think we pay enough taxes, and fights tax cuts tooth and nail. Read his columns over the last several months and you'll see that he is an enemy of the taxpayers. He isn't the editor, and doesn't speak for the Globe. What he actually said was:

But there are pretty clear signs that Hudak has wandered well north of the border that separates a hyperbolic political hopeful from a poisonous, insidious kook.

Again, this is the same guy who says that the sky will fall if question 1 or question 3 passes. I'm sure he took the same stance on prop 2.5 back in the day. It's very interesting that guys like Lehigh constantly pick on their opposition as doom and gloomers, yet the second you propose letting taxpayers keep more of their money they predict worldwide apocalypse.

The fact that Lehigh opposes Hudak should encourage you to vote for him. Lehigh hasn't met a fiscal conservative who isn't worthy of his scorn.

Interestingly, apparently the Tierney folks couldn't find many quotes that were scary enough, as they repeated the same citations that appear at the beginning at the end.

So, the ad is garbage, but it likely falls under protected speech, and I predict the lawsuit will fail. My guess is that the entire thing is about getting attention when you don't have the money that the sitting incumbent does to pay for smears.