I was watching the Orioles-Red Sox game yesterday when I saw a dishonest political ad attacking Barack Obama over his supposed hatred for the American small business owner. The ad was produced and paid for by American Crossroads, the political action group run by Karl Rove.

Here’s the ad:

The ad features statements from Sherry Wuebben and Bill Schams of St. Joseph Equipment, a farm equipment seller in La Crosse, Wisconsin. In the ad, Wuebben, the CFO of the company, talks about how bad things have been under Obama. That’s kind of funny, because she was singing a much different tune back in November 2010 when she told the USA Today that “We’re feeling a lot more comfortable” and that the company was able to hire back two laid off employees.

Wuebben also claims in the ad that Obama has raised their taxes. That’s just patently dishonest. Obama hasn’t raised anyone’s taxes. Why does this lie, that Obama has raised taxes, get repeated over and over again? Anyone who thinks their taxes have gone up under Obama needs to crack open their tax returns and take a good long look. They need to compare them to the tax returns they filed under Bush. If they do this, they will see that they are paying the same tax rate.

I hate political commercials. Mostly I hate them because of the lies they spread. It’s one thing to share a personal opinion, it’s quite another to express a statement of fact that’s not a fact. To say that Obama has raised taxes on small businesses is dishonest and I shouldn’t have to listen to it just because I want to watch a baseball game. Networks that run dishonest political ads, in this case, Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN), should be held responsible. Before a network accepts a political ad, they should be required to fact-check the statements presented as fact in the ad. Any network that broadcasts a dishonest, untrue political ad should be subject to lawsuits brought forth by the people forced to watch them. If MASN runs a dishonest political commercial in exchange for money, I should be able to sue them in a court of law.

Not that I want to sue anyone. I just don’t want to watch untrue, dishonest political ads. Is that asking too much? I don’t think it is.