GarbagemanGate Prematurely Terminated By Pesky Facts

"Pathetic" and "weak" would be good adjectives for this anti-Romney ad put out by AFSME.

The ad opens this way: “My name is Richard Hayes, and I pick up Mitt Romney’s trash. We’re kind of like the invisible people. He doesn’t realize that the service we provide – if it wasn’t for us, it would be a big health issue, us not picking up trash.”

Now, thanks to The Corner's Charles C. W. Cooke, we can add "inaccurate".

There’s just one problem with this, and it lies on page 251 of Mitt Romney’s book, No Apology:

During my campaign for governor, I decided to spend a day every few weeks doing the jobs of other people in Massachusetts. Among other jobs, I cooked sausages at Fenway Park, worked on asphalt paving crew, stacked bales of hay on a farm, volunteered in an emergency room, served food at a nursing home, and worked as a child-care assistant. I’m often asked which was the hardest job – it’s child care, by a mile.

One day I gathered trash as a garbage collector. I stood on that little platform at the back of the truck, holding on as the driver navigated his way through the narrow streets of Boston. As we pulled up to traffic lights, I noticed that the shoppers and businesspeople who were standing only a few feet from me didn’t even see me. It was as if I was invisible. Perhaps it was because a lot of us don’t think garbage men are worthy of notice; I disagree – anyone who works that hard deserves our respect. – I wasn’t a particularly good garbage collector: at one point, after filling the trough at the back of the truck, I pulled the wrong hydraulic lever. Instead of pushing the load into the truck, I dumped it onto the street. Maybe the suits didn’t notice me, but the guys at the construction site sure did: “Nice job, Mitt,” they called. “Why don’t you find an easier job?” And then they good-naturedly came down and helped me pick up my mess.

Oops. "Invisible". Wasn't that the same word used by the gentleman in the AFSME ad?

The Corner's Eliana Johnson points out that the garbageman ad is just the first in a series. Not sure if she means, a series of ads starring garbagemen or if AFSME will branch out to include Mitt's handyman, his car mechanic, the person who comes to tend his septic system (if he has one), etc. In any case, hopefully, the balance in the series won't be so badly researched or, more importantly, quite so WHINY.