This op-ed sets new standards for obtuseness and false equivalence, and is a prime example of what happens when you wade into a subject area you lack clear knowledge about. Take this section:

Did you know that Mitt Romney is responsible for the death of a steel worker’s wife? Or thatPresident Obama gutted the work requirement for welfare? Do you remember President Obama’s famous “Apology Tour” that kicked off his first term? How about that Gov. Romney outsourced thousands of Massachusetts jobs to India?

It’s amazing what you can learn from ads in this year’s presidential campaign: namely, some of our political leaders and their supporters are lying. Not stretching the truth or spinning the facts (which we expect) but outright lying. While advertising shouldn’t be your main source of education, it also shouldn’t be a source of disinformation.

Even putting apart the fact that Romney’s campaign has, by most any standard, put far more lies out there about Obama from the beginning (remember when he was taking quotes out of context to make it seem like Obama hated America and so on?), and that cherrypicking in this manner can only obscure the magnitude of the difference between the two, these aren’t even equivalent. Romney made the welfare attacks both personally and through his running mate and through an ad campaign paid for out of campaign funds. He’s been talking about this “apology tour” concept for four years, and the name of his campaign book (No Apology) references it. It’s something like a foundational principle to Romney, who has based his entire campaign on reckless hawkery and aggressiveness, the usual cartoon Republicans like to make out of Reagan.

But the two “Obama lies” are hardly equivalent to that. They’re one-off SuperPAC ads, which supposedly are supposed to be arranged independent of the candidate. If you ultimately hold Obama responsible for them, then every AFP or Karl Rove ad has to be fair game to pin to Romney, which would be so off the charts that I’m not sure I’d be comfortable arguing for it to apply to Romney. Part of the problem that comes with Citizens United is that it’s brought a huge amount of chaos to the process and minimized accountability. Candidates have plausible deniability when others launch nasty attacks on their behalf, but might also have to take the blame for attacks they had no part in instigating should there be a backlash. The prior, McCain-Feingold system was hardly ideal, but it made some nods toward accountability that the current system doesn’t make.

This comparison is so deeply wrong:

Imagine Coke and Pepsi running ad campaigns that attack the other brand. And I don’t mean the kinds of entertaining ads that show Pepsi truck drivers surreptitiously trying to order a Coke at a restaurant. I mean attack ads like our presidential candidates and their Super PAC supporters are running. Twisting facts. Accusing the other side of horrible labor practices. Personal attacks on the other brand’s CEO.

Both soft-drink brands would pay a price for that kind of advertising. Consumers would punish them by taking their dollars elsewhere. Our free market would work. The No. 3 soda-maker would make headway. Ice tea sales would go up. Boutique brands like Jones Soda and Izze would reap the benefits.

It’s plainly obvious that Sollisch doesn’t understand what a SuperPAC is. Pre-Citizens United, this metaphor would have held reasonably well. John McCain was Pepsi, Obama was Coke, both ran some positive and some negative ads and had to largely stand by them. But the system isn’t like that any more. At this point, only Coca-Cola and Pepsi are allowed to make ads on their own behalf, and if someone else tried, they’d be sued and they’d lose under trademark protection. Imagine if the Supreme Court said that this was unConstitutional, and that anybody has the right to make such ads. Maybe Pepsi would decide to make pseudo-Coke ads designed to make the competition look bad. Maybe RC Cola would make some about Pepsi. Maybe the iced tea industry would step in to try to take advantage of the confusion, using a front to argue that aspartame causes brain cancer. Who knows? The point is that there isn’t the equivalent of trademark protection in political ads. Really, that’s what stops the outlandish stuff from happening in regular ads.

And, perhaps inevitably, we get some waxing nostalgic for Ross Perot because he represented a “different choice” from the two usual parties. From the great Jonathan Bernstein, a bit of Perot’s “alternative”:

Step one, the American people send me up there, the day after election, I’ll get with congressional–we won’t even wait till inauguration, and I’ll ask the president to help and I’ll ask his staff to help me. And we will start putting together teams to put together–to take all the plans that exist and do something with them. Please understand. There are great plans lying all over Washington nobody ever executes. It’s like having a blueprint for a house you never built. You don’t have anywhere to sleep. Now our challenge is to take these things, do something with them. Step one, we want to put America back to work, clean up the small business problem, have one task force at work on that. The second, you’ve got your big companies that are in trouble, including the defense industries–have another one on that. Have a 3rd task force on new industries of the future to make sure we nail those for our country and they don’t wind up in Europe and Asia. Convert from 19th to 21st century capitalism. See, we have an adversarial relationship between government and business. Our international competitors that are cleaning our plate have an intelligent relationship between government and business, and a supportive relationship. Then have another task force on crime because, next to jobs, our people are concerned about their safety. Health care, schools–one on the debt and deficit. And finally in that 90- day period before the inauguration, put together the framework for the town hall and give the American people a Christmas present. Show them by Christmas the first cut at these plans. By the time Congress comes into session to go to work, have those plans ready to go in front of Congress. Then get off to a flying start in ’93 to execute these plans. Now, there are people in this room and people on this stage who’ve been in meetings when I would sit there and say, “Is this the one we’re going to talk about or do something about?” Well, obviously, my orientation is let’s go do it. Now, put together your plans by Christmas, be ready to go when Congress goes, nail these things. Small business–you’ve got to have capital, you’ve got to credit, and many of them need mentors or coaches. And we can create more jobs there in a hurry than any other place.

Making plans to make plans. No specifics. A debt obsession. Wait, are we sure this isn’t a Romney speech? What an alternative–won’t you join me in putting on a backward baseball cap?