NBC is calling Obama’s latest commercial his “closing ad,” even though there’s 40 days to go until election day. After running a brutally negative campaign for most of the summer, Obama appears to be shifting into “above the fray” mode, now that the media has taken over the job of pummeling Romney. With a few notable exceptions, Obama’s proposals in the ad sound fine. Produce more American-made energy, create one million new manufacturing jobs, and focus on cutting the deficit — no complaints here. Of course, Obama has had nearly four years to do all of these things and done none of them. Instead, he played politics by blocking the Keystone XL pipeline construction, and relegated deficit reduction and job creation to the back burner.

Notice there’s nothing in this ad about immigration reform. Kind of an odd omission, considering Obama’s claim at the Univision forum that his lack of progress on immigration was the “greatest failure” of his presidency.

Then there’s this line, twinned with an image of U.S. service members stepping off a plane:

As we end the war in Afghanistan, let’s apply half the savings to pay down our debt and use the rest for some nation building right here at home.

Why is the war “ending”? Certainly not because we won it. It’s ending because Obama’s preset timeline ran out, and now he can finally apply the “savings” to pay down our debt and do some nation building at home. Well, if that was what Obama felt was more important all along, why did we send a surge of troops in to risk, and in many cases lose, their lives? Why did we ask their families to make the sacrifice? The intentional dishonesty about the status in Afghanistan is infuriating.