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Schieffer bites back after unwittingly being used as Romney campaign attack dog

By ED BARK
@unclebarkycom
Face the Nation moderator Bob Schieffer is none too pleased about the Mitt Romney campaign using him as a rallying cry in a new political ad.

Nor should he be happy with whatever CBS station sales departments authorized the 30-second spot in which the overall slogan is Schieffer asking, "Whatever happened to hope and change?" It ran Sunday during Face the Nation, prompting a quick response from Schieffer after a commercial break.

"Obviously, I have no connection with the Romney campaign," Schieffer said on the air. "This was done without our permission. It comes as a total surprise to me, and that is that."

Actually, as he also noted Sunday, Schieffer was posing that question to President Obama's campaign manager, David Axelrod. "I wasn't stating something there. I was asking somebody else a question," he said.

It's not known how many CBS stations aired the ad, which likely was a local buy. CBS-owned CBS11 representatives so far have not returned emails asking whether the spot ran in D-FW.

Schieffer, an Austin native who grew up in Fort Worth, is an alumnus of Texas Christian University, which has its journalism school named after him. As a reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram he covered the Kennedy assassination. Schieffer also worked for Fort Worth-based WBAP-TV, now known as NBC5.

The below video has both Schieffer's comments and the ad itself.