Political ads.

Our Industry, capital I, seems to be doing its best to diminish and marginalize itself.

Every night on TV we are barraged with scurrilous political ads, almost always 30-seconds in length, almost always the basest kind of attacks, ad hominem and otherwise.

These ads--unlike the ones we create for sugar water and the like, are not subject to network clearance. They aren't bound by even the loosest definition of truth. They are a blight not only on our airwaves but they pollute the already rotten image my Americans have of advertising.

The operative word here is money.

The networks are making hand over fist from these ads. And they don't want to kill the goose laying all those golden eggs.

It's wrong.

Advertising should have standards.

And these have none.

Advertising should impart truth.

And these do the opposite.

It seems to me about every two months, at some lavish place in Cannes, or the Biltmore in Phoenix, or the Greenbrier down in West Virginia, advertising scions in loud plaids, drink, canoodle and post selfies of drinking and canoodling. Then they give themselves lifetime achievement awards.

They have abdicated their responsibility to us folks. The ones trying to make a living in the industry.

Someone needs to speak up.

I'm all for political ads. But they must be backed by facts. They must be network cleared. They must say who paid for them. And they should probably be longer than 30-seconds.

It's sad.

We work in a leaderless industry.