WASHINGTON -- Letting "America Be America Again" may be a tall order, if the filming locations of some clips in Sen. Scott Brown's latest reelection ad are any indication.
The two-and-a-half-minute spot, which the Massachusetts Republican's reelection team has hailed as an "online sensation," features three instances of stock footage filmed overseas, undercutting the ad's running theme of growing American business.
In one scene, a beaming chef is shown before he flips ingredients in a frying pan over an open flame, while President Gerald Ford praises American capitalism. According to Getty Images, the kitchen is located in Barcelona, Spain, a country currently stuck in its second recession in three years.
"Through our system of democracy and free enterprise, the United States has achieved remarkable, unbelievable progress," Ford booms as the chef flicks the frying pan.
In two other scenes, video portraits depict a butcher standing in the doorway of his shop and another worker posing in front of a delivery truck full of boxes. Both clips were filmed in Dublin, according to Getty Images.
Shortly before the camera hovers on the Irish butcher shop, President Ronald Reagan pays tribute to "the forgotten heroes of America, those who create most of our new jobs, like the owners of stores down the street."
The three clips are tagged with "Non US Location" on the Getty Images website, which also lists filming locations in each respective caption.
A Getty Images representative confirmed Monday that the cities and countries listed in the stock footage captions indicate filming locations.
A Brown spokeswoman did not respond to several requests for comment Monday.
In a statement, Massachusetts Democratic Party spokesman Matt House called Brown's rhetoric "as phony as his stock footage."
"Maybe it’s because of too many secret meetings with Kings and Queens that Scott Brown is featuring overseas businesses and trying to pass them off as American," House said, referring to Brown's debunked boast that he has secretly met with royalty. "Elizabeth Warren is focused on real small businesses facing real challenges here in the commonwealth and how to level the playing field so they can succeed."
The overseas scenes were first spotted by progressive blogger and Daily BlueNC.com contributor Greg Flynn.
In an email, Flynn said he grew up in Ireland and noticed that the butcher's surroundings looked familiar. After magnifying a screenshot of the butcher shop, he said he spotted part of the word "SOLICITOR" -- a common Irish term for the legal profession -- in the storefront's reflection.
Despite the off-message nods to foreign workers, the Brown campaign has promoted "Let America Be America Again" as a video manifesto for U.S. exceptionalism.
"This video has been such an online sensation because it fundamentally breaks down the choice in this election and the direction we want to take our country," Brown campaign manager Jim Barnett said in a news release. "Until now, the American Idea has always been that if you have a vision, work hard, and play by the rules then you can build something that no one can take away."
In a fundraising appeal emailed to supporters earlier this month, Brown wrote that the ad has been "cheered across the nation by patriots," listing off several positive reviews, including one that crowns it "quite possibly the greatest ad for 2012 by any candidate in either party." The Huffington Post reported Saturday that the cited praise comes from the conservative blog Libertarian Republican, which as recently as two weeks ago called Obama a Muslim.
Libertarian Republican editor Eric Dondero told The Huffington Post on Friday that it is a "fact" that the president is Muslim, although Obama has repeatedly described himself as a Christian.
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