This week, Barack Obama launched a campaign commercial entitled "Try This" to try and clarify (distort) his position on taxes. As you might expect, the ad pushes viewers to a website to see how Barack's plan would impact "you."

The ad also features a quote made by a senior policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, Rea Hederman, which leads viewers to believe that Heritage supports Barack's tax plan:

The problem?

As explained in a letter to Obama by a lawyer representing Heritage blogged yesterday at the Foundry, Rea Hederman never said the quote:

The print ad on your Website as well as your ad entitled “Try This” reference a quote from policy analyst Rea Hederman. In fact, Mr. Hederman never said what is quoted there. Rather, the words you quote are from a New York Sun reporter who interviewed Mr. Hederman and summarized his views erroneously.

That the reporter’s summary is erroneous is evident from the actual quotes from Mr. Hederman presented in the article, which make it quite clear that Mr. Hederman believes your tax plan would be bad not only for the country, but for the middle class. By omitting the direct quotes from Heritage that are contained in the article and attributing to Heritage a conflicting statement not made by its analyst, the advertisement appears to be an intentional attempt to mislead.

Today, with Obama's false ads still airing, Heritage has released a YouTube video from the very policy analyst quoted throughout to help clarify the situation:

Heritage's recent actions interest me because I'm seeing and feeling a shift among the conservative infrastructure where they are perhaps willing to engage the modern world to push-back on false narratives to try and set the record straight. This is a strong step in the right direction.

[Disclosure that we do some work with Heritage but had no role in this effort.]