The two key points:
1. Obama is never "dodgy" in his ad. He claims McCain voted for privatizing Social Security three times, and that's 100% accurate. Scherer's characterization of the ad is completely his own imagination.
2. And, Obama could've claimed that McCain is running on privatization now anyway. The fact that McCain is now claiming he isn't going to "privatize" Social Security is the actual "dodgy" claim here:
Indeed, multiple times this year, McCain has reiterated his support for "personal savings accounts" in which workers could "put part of their salary, part of their taxes into Social Security, into an account with their name on it."
So, rather than do a true analysis of McCain's position, Scherer buys into McCain's vague campaign statement and repeated attempts to paint his privatization schemes in a different color. And Scherer executes a false fact-check on Obama at the same time. A journalistic tour de force!
This is an important issue. McCain is on the record since as early as 2004 as clearly supporting privatization, called Social Security a disgrace just a couple months ago, and continually advocates for Bush's private accounts scheme:
I'm totally in favor of personal savings accounts.... I campaigned in support of President Bush's proposal and I campaigned with him, and I did town hall meetings with him.
The media needs to be vigilant with McCain's Social Security bamboozling, not make up nonexistent problems with Obama's Social Security ads.
See TPMTV's great video above on McCain's misleading privatization position, since we're on the topic.
Clearly the Republicans are up to not only word games as TPM says, but creating another wedge issue to divide us, slicing off children from their parents, turning one generation against another by pandering to "younger Americans" with the seductive idea that they can keep their money and make a bundle on Wall Street--- if only they didn't have to support the old folks with their own social security dollars.