Franken, Coleman ads cross line between fact, fiction

U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman's role in addressing alleged contract abuse in the Iraq war is the focus of an ad by his challenger, Al Franken, and a counterattack ad by Coleman.

Franken's ad is blunt: "As chairman of the most powerful investigative committee in the Senate, Norm Coleman had the perfect perch to look into no-bid contracts in Iraq. But Coleman did nothing."

Coleman's counterattack accuses Franken of "fiction" and credits the senator for the uncovering of "$80 billion in waste, fraud and abuse" and having "championed an independent Iraq investigator."

The ad from DFLer Franken survives the counterattack because of its narrow focus. In accusing Coleman of doing nothing, Franken targets the Republican senator's former role as chairman of the investigations panel. The Coleman ad doesn't directly refute that claim but notes that the senator supported other actions that addressed contract abuse in Iraq and elsewhere.

But the Franken ad exaggerates in a way not raised by the Coleman commercial. In tying Coleman to a contractor at the heart of the bidding controversy, the Franken ad's wording could lead viewers to conclude that the connection was greater than proven.

Voters must decide

Franken's ad begins by citing a portion of a Star Tribune editorial in 2005 that said the senator, then chairman of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, had the "perfect perch" to launch an investigation into no-bid contracts in Iraq. The editorial urged looking into those contracts.

The Coleman campaign struck back with "the real Coleman record," saying his panel exposed the misspending of $80 billion, that he pushed for an independent Iraq investigator and "supported over 100 nonpartisan reviews including no-bid contracts."

The $80 billion figure refers to subcommittee inquiries since 2003, focusing on issues other than alleged Iraq bid-rigging, such as abusive credit practices, vulnerabilities in homeland security and Medicare.

The independent investigator referred to in Coleman's ad wasn't part of Coleman's panel but the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR). The "nonpartisan reviews" that Coleman supported refer to 122 SIGIR audits from 2004 to 2008.

Coleman was among a group of senators who pushed in 2006 and 2007 to extend and reinforce SIGIR.

The subcommittee Coleman headed has a history of conducting aggressive investigations into military contract abuse, and Coleman's critics say he should have used it to conduct hearings into allegations that surfaced in 2003 about the Iraq contracts. Coleman says that SIGIR and other entities were better suited for the job and that he focused on exposing waste, fraud and abuse in other areas of government.

The Franken ad ends by saying, "Coleman did take $100,000 from defense contractors like Halliburton." That firm was the most prominent player in the controversy over no-bid Iraq contracts and was under investigation by the FBI.

Coleman's campaign received $110,000 from political action committees or individuals associated with the defense sector. Only $4,000 of it had clear Halliburton connections.

Using the phrase "defense contractors like Halliburton" could lead some viewers to conclude that most or all of the campaign contributions came from contractors accused of contract problems, when the ad offers no proof that occurred.