What Isn’t Wrong With This Picture?

So, at some point in here there is a criticism of oversexualized beer commericals.  I believe that’s about it.

I can’t believe what passes for journalism.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 5th, 2010 at 9:05 pm and is filed under Abortion, Brett Salkeld, Culture of Death, Rachel Maddow, Sports, TV, Tim Tebow. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

38 Responses to “What Isn’t Wrong With This Picture?”

  1. John C. Médaille says:
    February 5, 2010 at 9:24 pm

    “Advocacy Ad” is a redundancy; all ads advocate something, as the commentator pointed. The networks have for years censored non-commercial advocacy ads, ads that dealt with ideas rather than products. There is defacto censorship in this country. Adbusters for years attempted to run ads against the car and the consumer culture, but could not get them aired.

    I hope this establishes a precedent; once they have accepted this ad, they will not be free to censor ads from anybody.

  2. M.Z. says:
    February 5, 2010 at 10:30 pm

    Planned Parenthood has plenty of money and could easily afford a Super Bowl ad. They have the equivalent of a net profit exceeding $100 million annually.

    In defense of MSNBC, they don’t classify this program as journalism.

    Having gotten crotchety in my old age, I have grown to enjoy activities that don’t require me to entertain abortion politics or the beer debate. Doing an activity where better than 20% of my time will be spent being solicited just isn’t all that appealing anymore. It ranks right up there with sitting through a timeshare presentation for a free dinner: just not worth it. The idea that our relationships with others shouldn’t consist of whoring goods is just too radical today.

  3. David Nickol says:
    February 5, 2010 at 10:33 pm

    I think it is news that CBS
    (a) reversed its policy on advocacy ads and
    (b) worked with Focus on the Family to shape the ad

    I can only imagine the howls of outrage if CBS had worked with NARAL or Planned Parenthood to run its first-ever Super Bowl advocacy ad.

  4. epsilon says:
    February 6, 2010 at 5:14 am

    the secularist venom is spewing out of these two! I’d like to hear how the ad is received by the public

  5. Kyle R. Cupp says:
    February 6, 2010 at 12:13 pm

    I get the concern pro-choice advocates have over making or seeming to make a very risky choice into a universal guide, but then, raising the “right to choose” to the level they have risks others celebrating choices they personally wouldn’t have made. I’m not sure one can consistently uphold choice as having the highest value and then complain about the choices made. In short, I get why they are upset, but I wonder if, in being so upset, they are being consistent with their pro-choice views.

    As far advocacy ads at the super bowl, I don’t care one way or the other.

  6. phosphorious says:
    February 6, 2010 at 12:16 pm

    But an anti-Bush-invading-Iraq ad is rejected out of hand.

    Unfortunately, you’re right. . . this is not news. I am not surprised by that at all.

  7. Pinky says:
    February 6, 2010 at 12:42 pm

    I’m sure that CBS didn’t work with Tebow because they oppose abortion. They did it in order to walk a fine line, keeping the advertiser happy while not offending the most sensitive viewer. CBS never would have accepted a decapitated-head style anti-abortion ad. While I’m sure it’s an advocacy ad (whatever that means), it’s being presented as a family-friendly human interest story. The network makes up for Janet Jackson’s breast and generates controversy at the same time? Win-win.

  8. Rodak says:
    February 6, 2010 at 12:53 pm

    “In short, I get why they are upset, but I wonder if, in being so upset, they are being consistent with their pro-choice views.”

    Kyle–If you really “get why they are upset” then I don’t understand what is it that you are wondering about. Maddow, et al., are not upset by Mrs. Tebow’s freedom to choose, but by a series of choices made by CBS; choices which have not allowed others to advocate their positions as Mrs. Tebow has been allowed to air hers. How is the MSNBC crowd being inconsistent?

  9. brettsalkeld says:
    February 6, 2010 at 12:55 pm

    Indeed, while David points out aspects of the story that are newsworthy, this clip is not, as phosphorious says, news.

    Pinky, I am quite sure that was CBS’ concern as well. Seems almost obvious until these two try to obscure it.

    MZ, I am glad that MSNBC does not call this journalism, but it still is presented as such and many who agree with it take it as such. Part of my point in posting this is to show that this is evil Fox’s evil twin. How it is not clear that Fox and this crap have more in common than not is beyond me. Sure Fox agrees with us about some of the more important issues, but, given that their MO roughly parallels that seen above, endorsing them hurts our cause more than helps it.

    Kyle: AMEN!

  10. Rodak says:
    February 6, 2010 at 2:23 pm

    There is no doubt that MSNBC is a liberal response to Fox News. But there are a few important distinctions between the two. One distinction is that MSNBC does not claim to be “fair and balanced” when it is not. MSNBC is openly and transparently advocating liberal positions. That Fox News lays claim to journalistic objectivity is a joke. Another thing is that Fox lumps CNN and the three “majors” together with MSNBC and condemns the entire group for displaying “liberal bias.” By so doing, Fox is implicitly laying claim to being the only legitimate and truthful source of unfiltered news. That, too, is a joke. Finally, Fox News constantly brags about its market share, while denouncing all other news/opinion outlets as the “Mainstream Media.” What makes a venue “mainstream” if it is not its market share? Yet the bleating merinos out here in fly-over territory have come to shun the acronym “MSM” as though it were the evil eye. MSNBC is not the “evil twin” of Fox News. The evil of Fox News is not its ideological bias, to which it is entitled. The evil of Fox News is to present itself as something that it is not; in effect living within a campaign of disinformation and false propaganda. MSNBC is what it is, and makes no bones about it.

  11. Steve says:
    February 6, 2010 at 3:06 pm

    I can only imagine the howls of outrage if CBS had worked with NARAL or Planned Parenthood to run its first-ever Super Bowl advocacy ad.

    If planned parenthood wanted to spend the money and run a Super Bowl ad, CBS would accept the ad whole cloth without even a thought of censoring (“co-writing”.)

    What I find noteworthy is the fact that, aside from the fringe pro-abortion extremists, it seems nobody particularly cares that this ad is running. Somehow it seems to me that if planned parenthood was planning an ad to promote abortion, even if it was under the guise of promoting liberty (“choice”,) there would be protests and boycotts amid a media frenzy (FOX, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc.) The ad would likely be killed for fear of too many people choosing to avoid the commercialist holy day of obligation.

  12. Blackadder says:
    February 6, 2010 at 3:18 pm

    Am I the only one who when watching the PP ad thought “these are the best sports celebrities they could get?”

  13. David Nickol says:
    February 6, 2010 at 3:20 pm

    Indeed, while David points out aspects of the story that are newsworthy, this clip is not, as phosphorious says, news.

    Brett,

    I am guessing you don’t watch Rachel Maddow. She is not doing a news broadcast, and anyone who watches is not a expecting a news broadcast. Anyone who watches a program called “The Rachel Maddow Show” should know that they are not watching news.

    I think if you watch Rachel Maddow discussing torture, or the treatment of prisoners at Gitmo, you would find that, from a Catholic perspective, on some issues, she represents the Catholic point of view better than Fox. On many others, of course, she doesn’t.

    I certainly hope your point is not that Fox is the “good twin” and MSNBC is the “evil twin.” I take it what you mean is that MSNBC is doing from the left what Fox is doing from the right, and neither are acceptable. If you were to use Keith Olbermann as an example of MSNBC, I might be inclined to agree with you, but Rachel Maddow can be very informative, and she is not touting herself as “fair and balanced.”

    As Rodak points out, Maddow made clear her respect for Pam Tebow’s decision. She did raise the interesting issue of whether there will be some time of disclaimer on the commercial that disregarding your doctor’s advice regarding a life-threatening pregnancy may be hazardous to your health (my words, not hers). I suspect when we see the actual commercial, it will be innocuous enough so that a disclaimer would be silly.

  14. David Nickol says:
    February 6, 2010 at 3:31 pm

    Just one other point, which I have made elsewhere. The Super Bowl watchers who will applaud Pam Tebow’s decision to disregard her doctors’ advice and spend the last two months of her pregnancy in the hospital will be largely the same crowd trying to kill health care reform. If pro-lifers expect women to take extraordinary medical risks rather than have abortions, they should be willing to guarantee that every woman, no matter how poor, can afford two months in the hospital without going bankrupt, and that any other children are provided for should the woman die.

    If you want to ban abortions, then you should be willing to put your money where your mouth is and be willing to help foot the bill for all the consequences. I don’t doubt that most pro-lifers would be thrilled to get an anti-abortion amendment to the constitution, and then they would invoke subsidiarity and say that the financial burden that would create for many families should be dealt with on the state or local level (if government should be involved at all) or by charity.

    Conservatives in general scoff at women who have children they can’t afford, but on the other hand, they want an extra million or so children to be born in the United States that they would be unwilling to help support.

  15. Blackadder says:
    February 6, 2010 at 4:48 pm

    Maddow made clear her respect for Pam Tebow’s decision.

    I disagree. She said she was glad things worked out for Mrs. Tebow. She didn’t say she respected her decision, and the general tenor of the decision suggests that she does not.

    Frankly, talk of “doctor’s orders” when it comes to abortion is more than a little creepy.

  16. Kyle R. Cupp says:
    February 6, 2010 at 4:55 pm

    Maddow, et al., are not upset by Mrs. Tebow’s freedom to choose, but by a series of choices made by CBS; choices which have not allowed others to advocate their positions as Mrs. Tebow has been allowed to air hers.

    That’s not all they’re upset about, though. It’s pretty clear they think Tebow’s message is itself dangerous to women who may be in similar circumstances.

  17. David Nickol says:
    February 6, 2010 at 5:00 pm

    By the way, I think the pro-choicers are making much too big a fuss over this commercial, particularly since no one has actually seen it. While there are certainly issues worthy of discussion about the ad (the reversal of the CBS policy against advocacy ads, the involvement of CBS in shaping the message, the fact that Pam Tebow was in the Philippines where abortion even to save the life of the mother was illegal), there appears to be a kind of panic or hysteria on the part of pro-choicers that makes you wonder what’s going on in their heads.

  18. Kurt says:
    February 6, 2010 at 5:52 pm

    If planned parenthood wanted to spend the money and run a Super Bowl ad, CBS would accept the ad whole cloth without even a thought of censoring (“co-writing”.)

    Actually, they turned down an ad by the United Church of Christ that spoke of how they welcomed all, because of the supportive references to gay people.

    If you want to ban abortions, then you should be willing to put your money where your mouth is and be willing to help foot the bill for all the consequences.

    I think we have seen ample evidence that the Pro-Life Movement negotiates over the “non-negotible” issue of abortion to make sure than unborn lives are not saved in a way that might make a rich man pay a dime more in taxes.

  19. phosphorious says:
    February 6, 2010 at 7:43 pm

    “Frankly, talk of “doctor’s orders” when it comes to abortion is more than a little creepy.”

    I disagree. It is not as if the doctors ordered her to abort, right?

    In fact, Mrs. Tebow’s experience suggests that the pro-life crowd has vastly overstated the “proaborts” lust for infant blood. Her doctors warned her of the risks (and I hope you’re not suggesting that they shouldn’t have) and she made a decision.

    Nobody forced her one way or the other. This is the situation that the “pro-life” crowd wants to change.

  20. Morning's Minion says:
    February 7, 2010 at 12:44 am

    I have never heard of Tim Tebow or any of the other sports people mentioned in this clip. I don’t watch super bowls. I find this debate wholly uninteresting.

  21. John Henry says:
    February 7, 2010 at 12:57 am

    there appears to be a kind of panic or hysteria on the part of pro-choicers that makes you wonder what’s going on in their heads…

    It seems to me there has been a rather dramatic reversal in the trend of public opinion on abortion over the last 15 years. Younger voters are more likely to be pro-life than older voters, and, while Roe will be the law of the land for the foreseeable future (thanks to what will likely be at least three judicial appointments from the Obama Administration), there has clearly been a shift of momentum. This has understandably upset and dismayed many pro-choicers, and, as the Tebow ad is one particularly obvious marker of that shift, they are objecting to it more strongly than is probably warranted.

  22. Michael J. Iafrate says:
    February 7, 2010 at 1:52 am

    how many kids did u.s. soldiers kill in afghanistan today?

  23. David Nickol says:
    February 7, 2010 at 2:01 am

    how many kids did u.s. soldiers kill in afghanistan today?

    Yes, and how many kids did u.s. soldiers kill in Haiti today? We have 17,000 trained child-killers there, so children are obviously being killed. Why is nobody paying attention?

  24. Kevin says:
    February 7, 2010 at 9:12 am

    MI,

    Probably none. The num,ber of children killed by abortion the Monday after Super Bowl, probably about 10,000.

  25. Rodak says:
    February 7, 2010 at 9:35 am

    Michael J.–
    Asking that same question, in a similar context, but about Iraq, got me permanently 86′d from a blog called “What’s Wrong With the World.”
    Some folks are quite cavalier about killing babies once they’re born, or even in the womb–so long as it’s done from 10,000 feet in sky.

  26. John Henry says:
    February 7, 2010 at 11:56 am

    We have 17,000 trained child-killers there, so children are obviously being killed. Why is nobody paying attention?

    To say nothing of those stationed in the U.S. Growing up near the Pentagon, I’m lucky to have made it to adulthood.

  27. Michael J. Iafrate says:
    February 7, 2010 at 12:24 pm

    Rodak – Yes, indeed. Such as the person “Kevin” who commented just before you.

  28. phosphorious says:
    February 7, 2010 at 1:00 pm

    Is there the danger of this ad playing to a broadly anti-science culture?

    “Doctor’s orders? what the hell do THEY know?”

    You say that pro-choicers are not respecting Pam Tebow’s choice to keep her son. But if such a choice is made with bad information, it’s not much of a choice at all.

    Show me the Superbowl ad by a sports hero whose mother actually died by deciding to go through with a dangerous pregnancy.

    I’d have more respect for the movement.

  29. Kevin says:
    February 7, 2010 at 6:02 pm

    Phos,

    I suppose St. Gianna isn’t good enough for you?

  30. brettsalkeld says:
    February 7, 2010 at 11:14 pm

    For those who are curious:
    http://www.lifenews.com/timtebow.html
    Pretty low key if you ask me.
    Also, I didn’t know Mary Steenburgen was Tim Tebow’s mom.

  31. Blackadder says:
    February 7, 2010 at 11:28 pm

    Brett,

    That’s it? All the controversy and gnashing of teeth was over that?

  32. Rodak says:
    February 8, 2010 at 4:43 am

    I’m wondering, John Henry–how many dead Muslim children does it take to equal one dead American? What’s the formula for that, according to the American Exceptionalist Math?

  33. Blackadder says:
    February 8, 2010 at 10:56 am

    NOW is now condemning the ad for advocating violence against women. No, I’m not making this up:

    NOW president Terry O’Neill said it glorified violence against women. “I am blown away at the celebration of the violence against women in it,” she said.

    Source.

  34. Kyle R. Cupp says:
    February 8, 2010 at 12:12 pm

    And by saying she’s “blown away,” does Terry O’Neill advocate violence against women?

  35. phosphorious says:
    February 8, 2010 at 12:57 pm

    “That’s it? All the controversy and gnashing of teeth was over that?”

    No.

    The controversy is that an anti-war ad was previously rejected while an anti-abortion ad was allowed, and even encouraged by the network.

    More proof that “pro-life” values are badly skewed.

  36. phosphorious says:
    February 8, 2010 at 12:58 pm

    If the laws that anti-abortionists intend to see put in place essentially force a womna to sacrifice her life for her unborn child, then yes, that is violence against women.

  37. phosphorious says:
    February 8, 2010 at 12:59 pm

    “I suppose St. Gianna isn’t good enough for you?”

    Perfect! Put her story on air during the next superbowl!

  38. David Nickol says:
    February 8, 2010 at 4:01 pm

    NOW is now condemning the ad for advocating violence against women. No, I’m not making this up

    Blackadder,

    Even I agree that that Now is being ludicrous.

    They should be pointing out the major discrepancies in the two versions of Pam Tebow’s story, one in The Gainesville Sun and the other in the recorded interview on the web site of Focus on the Family. In the recorded interview, there is no problem over illegal abortion, since the first doctor she sees tells her she isn’t really carrying a baby but a “mass of fetal tissue” or a “tumor.” (I am presuming that an abortion to expel a tumor is not illegal. It is certainly not immoral.) She declines to have an abortion, and does not see another doctor for 7 months until she goes to Manila. In the newspaper interview:

    Doctors later told Pam that her placenta had detached from the uterine wall, a condition known as placental abruption, which can deprive the fetus of oxygen and nutrients. Doctors expected a stillbirth, Pam said, and they encouraged her to terminate the pregnancy.

    “They thought I should have an abortion to save my life from the beginning all the way through the seventh month,” she recalled.

    Since she sees only one doctor at the outset, and doesn’t have any medical treatment for seven months after declining to have an abortion, who is the they in “they thought I should have an abortion” and who are the “doctors” in “doctors expected a stillbirth”?

    In the print interview we have this

    Just before her pregnancy, Pam fell into a coma after contracting amoebic dysentery, a bacteria transmitted through contaminated drinking water. During her recovery, she received a series of strong medications. And even though she discontinued the regimen when she discovered the pregnancy, doctors told Pam the fetus had been damaged.

    In the recorded interview, she takes one only one dose of the medicine, and although it is not altogether clear, it seems to be after she knew she was pregnant. Of course, it’s possible the reporter just got the story wrong.

    I would advise any woman who is told by a doctor that she is not pregnant but has a tumor in her womb that will kill her not to wait seven months before consulting another doctor.

    (Reposted here from dotCommonweal with some modifications.)