Rep. Harold Ford, one of the Democratic Party's rising African-American stars, is running for the Senate in Tennessee. He attended a party hosted by Playboy at the last Super Bowl (in Jacksonville, Florida), and somehow the Republicans think that is a legitimate campaign issue. There had been a minor controversy about Ford accepting campaign contributions from the pornography industry, and apparently some Church Lady at the GOP sees a connection. Of course, anyone who thinks of Playboy as pornography has either been in a coma since 1956 or must go through life in America with his mouth frozen, as Stephen King likes to say, "in a rictus of horror."

Then the ethics games commenced. Ford, apparently inspired by his hero, Bill Clinton, responded to rumors about the racy party (there were reportedly---gasp!!!---naked girls there!) by telling George Stephanopoulos one Sunday morning that he denied ever attending a party "at the Playboy Mansion." Cute. But sneaky. The so-called Playboy Mansion is in California, not Jacksonville. Ford's non-answer was crafted to make casual listeners think that he hadn't attended the Super Bowl party when he was really denying that he had gone to a theoretical party nobody had asked him about. Later, when Ford finally admitted that reports of him partying with fold-outs were true, his campaign manager took the patently dishonest position that the Congressman hadn't been deceitful in his interview with Stephanopoulos. "He's always been straight about it," he said. "The congressman has never said anything that was not exactly true." Yes, what Ford said originally was "exactly true," and also completely intended to deceive. In other words, a lie.

Why Ford originally played these games is anybody's guess. He's unmarried, and there is nothing reasonable people should find objectionable about a young Congressman going to a party teeming with beautiful women. Nonetheless, his reflexive use of deceit to deal with the issue is a red flag to the Scoreboard and should be to his constituents as well. We now know that when Rep. Ford thinks he is in a tight spot, he is not above using double-talk and deceit to cover his tracks.

Next up in the ethical misconduct competition: the GOP, which has been competing a lot lately. The Republican National Committee hit the Tennessee TV stations with a cheesy attack ad against Ford, featuring community theater rejects playing potential Tennessee voters and an especially untalented blonde actress breathily saying that she met Ford "at the Playboy party."

"Harold, call me!" the woman says, winking at the camera.

Ethics aside, the ad is really silly, badly conceived and embarrassingly performed. The latter flaw, it could be argued argue, keeps it from being dishonest as well, since the spot presents a woman as someone who met Ford at the controversial party in 2005 when she did not. But some people will be gullible enough to think this hack is a real Playboy bunny, probably the same people who think their vote for U.S. Senator should be determined by what Super Bowl parties a candidate attends, and the RNC undoubtedly knows this. It's a deceptive ad.

But is it a racist ad? That's what the NAACP claims, saying that it "plays to pre-existing prejudices about African-American men and white women." John Geer, a Vanderbilt University political science professor who is an expert on negative advertising, also objects to the ad, saying that it is "playing off of old style fears of interracial relationships." To be fair, the RNC can't be tarred with playing the race card unless that was their intent, and that intent is not so clear from the circumstances. The archetypical Playboy fold-out is a busty blonde: Marilyn Monroe, after all, was the magazine's first cover-girl. The ad's evident ( and admittedly stupid) objective is to impugn Ford's character by reminding voters that he attended a Playboy party with scantily clad women. Would that message be as effectively communicated by an African-American community theater reject playing the bimbo? Maybe, but I can see the rationale for using the more stereotypical blonde. It is certainly possible that it occurred to the GOP that playing on interracial relationship fears could be a side benefit of the ad, but is it really plausible that any voters who hold such antediluvian phobias are going to vote to elect an African-American senator? The Scoreboard's verdict: it's an unethical ad, but the accusations of racism are unwarranted.

Not the way NBC presented the controversy, however. Incredibly, when the controversy was explored on the Today show there was no mention of the Playboy party incident at all, making it look as if the "Harold, call me!" line could only be an appeal to racial stereotypes. Think about that for a second. Rep. Ford is embroiled in a controversy about his attendance at a Playboy party. He uses deceitful language to give the impression that he never was there, then confirms his participation. The Republican Party builds a negative ad around this incident, with an actress pretending to be someone he met at the party. Because the makers of the ad cast a bad blonde actress in the role rather than a bad black actress, Democratic allies tell the media that the spot intentionally invokes racial stereotypes. And because NBC makes no mention of the inspiration for the ad, reasonable viewers who have not been following Tennessee politics can only conclude that the Big, Bad, Racist Republicans are up to their Willy Horton tricks one more time.

Media anti-Republican bias or astoundingly sloppy journalism? The Scoreboard has its opinion and you are welcome to yours, but either way, NBC wins the "Most Unethical Player" booby prize in this silly episode. Telling only half a story is no way to inform the public, but it's an effective way to mislead it. For a major television network to deliver this kind of distorted reporting during a hotly contested national election is the height of unethical journalism, regardless of whether it was intentional or accidental.