"The way to fix your image is not to run a TV ad, but to do the right thing and resign," Brewer said in a reference to Hoekstra's work as a senior advisor for Washington law and lobbying firm Dickstein Shapiro.  "We've been calling on him to resign from that job for some time because we think it creates a conflict of interest."

Without even going into Pete's role as a business consultant in helping companies deal with the federal government (companies that sell in overseas markets do occasionally need federal approval), let's briefly look at that "conflict of interest" meme, shall we?

I seem to remember an article from the Grand Rapids Press about a month and a half back discussing the clear conflict-of-interest of a certain junior U. S. Senator from Michigan in chairing a bankruptcy investigation into a certain global trading firm, the CEO of which is a former Senate colleague and known campaign donor.  That Stabenow ripped Corzine a new one on camera ought to be taken with a grain of salt after considering that Debbie's repeated requests of Jon for contributions to her campaign war chest have been met with a fairly tight-fisted response.  I agree with Pete in that any actual judge faced with similar circumstances would be expected to immediately recuse; that Stabenow didn't, well . . .

But I digress; let's get back to talking about this ad.

I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but the People's Republic of China is the largest foreign holder of U. S. debt (and second overall, behind only the Federal Reserve).  Debbie Stabenow's record is filled with years of actively supporting reckless spending and job-killing policies that have increased our nation's debt and our reliance on China.  The trillions of dollars in government spending that Stabenow has signed onto since the democrats regained control of Congress in 2006 has done nothing to turn America's economy around and, in many cases, can be shown to have directly spurred real job creation in China instead.

To use just one example, some of the stimulus funding for "green energy" (a perpetual favorite of Debbie "I can feel global warming when I'm flying" Stabenow) went to subsidize the construction of wind towers, and the wind towers in question were manufactured in . . . wait for it . . . China.  By some reports, those stimulus grants created as many as 6,800 jobs overseas, thus giving a leg-up to Chinese manufacturers while leaving Michigan workers stranded on the unemployment lines.

Debbie Stabenow has consistently voted for job-killing policies that make it harder for American businesses to compete in the global marketplace.  She has made it harder for the manufacturing industry to grow and be flexible to the ever-changing marketplace by tying the hands of job creators with red tape.  She has made America less competitive and China an attractive place to relocate.

Thus, from a national security perspective, we have, on Stabenow's watch, handed our soft power (economic control) over to a nation that has made it very clear of late that they desire superpower status, preferably at our expense.  By taking ownership of some of our debt, Beijing capitalized on our economic collapse and, as a result, leveraged democrat political stupidity in order to directly spur real job creation in China.  Yes, the very nation that damn near owns Uncle Sam economically is growing their own domestic economy exponentially.

The ad in question has a bit of a bite to it, and is designed to directly engage Senator "Dangerously Incompetent" Stabenow squarely on her record.  It's a satirical look at a pair of very serious economic issues, the need to constructively address our crippling national debt and the need to reinvigorate our domestic manufacturing sector.  But with the reckless spending and crippling debt that Debbie Stabenow wants us to keep accumulating, we are digging ourselves a deeper hole while China continues to prosper.

And that trade-off has to stop.