Misplaced Referent Archives

Misplaced Referent: Obama vs. Romney on Troops in Iraq

President Barack Obama (D) twists Gov. Mitt Romney’s (R) words about withdrawing troops from Iraq.

Misplaced Referent: Romney vs. Obama ‘It Worked’

A web video by Gov. Mitt Romney (R) attacks President Obama (D) by taking a quote out of context.

Misplaced Referent: Obama ‘You Didn’t Build That’

Ads by the campaign of presumptive Republican party nominee Mitt Romney, the third-party group National Republican Congressional Committee and the third-party group American Crossroads take a statement by President Obama out of context.

Misplaced Referent: Planned Parenthood Action Fund vs. Romney

An ad by a group calling itself Planned Parenthood Action Fund uses the misleading technique known as misplaced referent to attack former Gov. Mitt Romney (R).

Misplaced Referent: Perry vs. Obama ‘Lazy’

A TV ad by Gov. Rick Perry (R- X) attacks President Barrack Obama (D) by generalizing a quote.

Misplaced Referent: Romney vs. Obama ‘Talking About the Economy’

A TV ad by Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) attacks President Barrack Obama (D) by taking a quote out of context.

Govs. Romney and Perry have a wee (“we”) pronoun problem

Gov. Mitt Romney released a TV ad in New Hampshire, taking a 2008 statement by candidate Barack Obama out of context and implying that President Obama had recently made it. Both that ad and one by Gov. Rick Perry distorted the meaning of a sentence that President Obama had spoken. In these takedowns, FlackCheck.org suggests that their use of these out-of-context statements suggests that the two Republican governors suffered from pronounced pronoun problems.