Pro life commercial starring President Obama

[the_Abbot]

Pro life commercial NBC refused to play during Super Bowl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt8C5MsnCp0

 

[Ave Maria]

Isn't it just disgusting that the media has refused to let this commercial be shown during the Super Bowl? I tell you, it seems to me as though the mainstream media gets more and more liberal all the time.

 

[emilylauren]

Well, to balance it out and give NBC some credit they also refused PETA's sexually provocative advertisement as well. That being said, I would have liked to see that commercial play. :] It makes me happy.

 

[Fantine]

If NBC had a written policy for Super Bowl, Olympic, and other sporting event ads, established before PETA or this Pro-Life Committee made their requests, I don't have a problem with their refusal.

I think we have a right to expect them to have a policy that is evenly enforced. If this ad had been accepted, word would have gone out, I'm sure, and NARAL or Planned Parenthood would have put in ads of their own.

 

[colleen]

If NBC had a written policy for Super Bowl, Olympic, and other sporting event ads, established before PETA or this Pro-Life Committee made their requests, I don't have a problem with their refusal.

I think we have a right to expect them to have a policy that is evenly enforced. If this ad had been accepted, word would have gone out, I'm sure, and NARAL or Planned Parenthood would have put in ads of their own.

PETA wasn't told no for political reasons. They were told their ad was too sexually explicit, and were given guidelines for editing. If they had edited their commercial it would have aired.

 

[AMDG]

PETA wasn't told no for political reasons. They were told their ad was too sexually explicit, and where given guidelines for editing. If they had edited their commercial it would have aired.

Yes, the double-standard is sickening. NBC had a chance to actually make a statement and really "make a difference", but they blew it. And we all know why: Obama's political stand against life.

 

[Mom2Alex]

Isn't it just disgusting that the media has refused to let this commercial be shown during the Super Bowl? I tell you, it seems to me as though the mainstream media gets more and more liberal all the time.

PETA was told to clean up the sexually explicit images and it could be aired. Catholicvote.org was told that they have a policy against politically charged ads. Double standard? Yes. I refused to watch the SuperBowl and my day/night was just fine without it.

 

[Mom2Alex]

PETA wasn't told no for political reasons. They were told their ad was too sexually explicit, and where given guidelines for editing. If they had edited their commercial it would have aired.

Absolutely! Thank you for noting the double standard. Very few Catholics have noted that, or so it seems.

 

[AMDG]

PETA was told to clean up the sexually explicit images and it could be aired. Catholicvote.org was told that they have a policy against politically charged ads. Double standard? Yes. I refused to watch the SuperBowl and my day/night was just fine without it.

Team Sarah Pro-Life Coalition actually called for a boycott because of the double standard (and after complaints fell on deaf ears--even to the point of having the email box full so no more complaints could be registered.) Anyway, I was surprised that the news just said that Super Bowl watching was down (I believe I heard 42% mentioned.)

 

[Epiphanygirl]

They need to run that ad on MSNBC

 

[AMDG]

They need to run that ad on MSNBC

 

[Fantine]

There are a few factual inaccuracies in this video.

Barack Obama's parents were married when he was born. Stanley Anne Dunham and Barack Obama, Sr. married on February 1, 1961. The President was born on August 4, 1961.

They remained married until Obama was 2. His mother, an anthropologist, remarried shortly after her 1964 divorce, and Obama's stepfather and mother raised him in Indonesia until he was 10. Obama's stepfather was a geologist and government consultant for Mobil Oil.

His father was a Harvard educated economist.

When Obama was ten, his mother sent him back to live with his grandparents, a loving married couple, so that he could get a better education (in Catholic school.)

I thought that this ad was tasteful but misleading.

Although Obama's mother was only 18 when he was born, she was married, and, except for the one year in which she was between husbands, married for most of his childhood, to well-educated successful men. She, too, obtained a good education, and his Ozzie-and-Harriet grandparents willingly stepped up to bat to help raise him when they were called upon to.

And that is my primary objection. Listening to President Obama, I know that he loved his mother very much, and misrepresenting her marital status in order to make a more compelling ad is not only wrong, but potentially libelous.

It also plays into stereotypes people have about rates of black illegitimacy, black "broken homes," black struggling single moms, black matriarchies, etc. Throughout his childhood Obama attended Catholic and private schools, including the most exclusive college prep school in Hawaii (this year, tuition at Punahou School is almost $17K.) And, despite his unconventional childhood, he had opportunities for travel and multicultural experience most American children never have.

 

[AMDG]

And that is my primary objection. Listening to President Obama, I know that he loved his mother very much, and misrepresenting her marital status in order to make a more compelling ad is not only wrong, but potentially libelous.

Oh good grief! No one is suggesting that Obama doesn't love his mother. The ad simply shows that life has unbelievable potential--even if the mother of that life is a minor, the child was conceived out-of-wedlock (and unless Obama was premature, that's the scenario) and even if the father did abandon her and his child (and finally divorced her.)

 

[CreedIsChrist]

If NBC had a written policy for Super Bowl, Olympic, and other sporting event ads, established before PETA or this Pro-Life Committee made their requests, I don't have a problem with their refusal.

I think we have a right to expect them to have a policy that is evenly enforced. If this ad had been accepted, word would have gone out, I'm sure, and NARAL or Planned Parenthood would have put in ads of their own.

I saw a few contraception commercials during the super bowl.

The media seems to have no problems pushing contraception on everyone in tons of commercials. Yet they can't show a pro life commercial, and a very subtle one at that?

 

[Fantine]

Oh good grief! No one is suggesting that Obama doesn't love his mother. The ad simply shows that life has unbelievable potential--even if the mother of that life is a minor, the child was conceived out-of-wedlock (and unless Obama was premature, that's the scenario) and even if the father did abandon her and his child (and finally divorced her.)

Good grief is right!

The truth:

Obama's parents were married for six months when he was born. When Obama's mother found herself pregnant, his father said, "Let's get married." She said, "Yes."

During his childhood, she was a "single mother" for one year.

His stepfather was financially successful and well-connected in Indonesia, and they were not "struggling."

He went to private schools in Indonesia, and, when he went back to Hawaii to live with his loving, long-married grandparents, he attended the most prestigious and expensive private school in the state.

His parents and step-father were well-educated; his father had a post-graduate Harvard degree in economics.

People who love their families do NOT want to see their lives misrepresented--whether they are President Obama or everyday citizens.

The thrust of that commercial is that this is the child of the "typical" single teenage mom--the one who, statistically, NEVER graduates from high school and probably receives one form of public assistance or another during her life.

For its own purposes, CatholicVote.com made his mom into a "welfare queen" instead of the very real "queen" Obama always sees, looking through the eyes of love.

Shame on them!

For that matter, why didn't they pick President Clinton to be their poster child? His father died before he was born. His mother left him with Grandma and studied to be a nurse. She was a struggling single mom for many more years than Mrs. Obama.

Could it be because President Clinton is white and President Obama is black?

 

[AMDG]

Fantine, it's not misrepresentation to point to the fact that life has potential!

Way back in the '60s when a girl found herself in the "family way" out-of-wedlock, marriage (before she "showed") was expected. Today, the society pushes abortion--no responsibility for the guy or the girl. The ad simply points out that if Obama's mom had chosen that path, there would be no Obama for you to be arguing about.

Oh, the ad also points out another excuse for abortion that is used today--that of "the father of the child abandoned us". That excuse would also lead to "no Obama".

 

[Fantine]

AMDG, this very discussion is illustrative as to how different people with different points of view would have looked at this particular commercial had it aired.

You obviously believe it's fine to violate President Obama's privacy, make a fractured fairy tale of his childhood, and malign his dead parents who can no longer speak for themselves if it might keep one person from having an abortion.

Whereas I think if CatholicVote.com plays fast and loose with the truth they are bringing discredit to their worthy cause and making their organization seem less creditable.

You think it's OK to "cheat" (i.e. lie) if it might make someone think twice about abortion. I think it's sleazy, and I think it's sleazy to misrepresent Obama's life in this way.

And no matter how you try to justify their misrepresentation and sleaziness, I'll never believe it's justified. I think it's good that this commercial didn't air, and I do believe that it was somewhat libelous.

 

[Davidnic]

The point though Fantine is also that the ad represents Obama as Obama represents himself.

Obama himself has described his mother as a "single mother". He described his father as having "abandoned them" And he also described her as a "Poor single mother" Usually in relation to medical bills and not having money.

He has described her as a teenage mother, a single mother, a mother who worked, went to school and raised children at the same time. (NY Times 3/14/2008)
​

From an Obama campaign ad in July of 2008:

I´m Barack Obama and I approve this message.

Some people have power and connections.

But most of us have to make our own way through life.
This is true even for the man who could become the next President … Barack Obama.
He grew up without a father — raised by his mother with the support of his grandparents.

Through student loans and hard work, he graduated from college.
Obama never forgot his roots…
​

it goes on...and there are about three others like it that play up:

His father leaving and his mother "raising him alone" or needing the "support of his grandparents" because of financial difficulties.
​

This is the Obama created by campaign propaganda by his own campaign. The reason he can't sue for libel is that he said these things himself.

They are not misrepresenting him...unless he misrepresented himself. Did he? I don't know. I just know the ad does not use any language that Obama did not use himself or indicate. So did he misrepresent all that? Your info makes a good case that he did.

But the fact is...the ad does not go beyond the info he introduced in the campaign. Single mom, struggling and needing help to raise him, abandoned by his father. All of those are his words.

 

[colleen]

For its own purposes, CatholicVote.com made his mom into a "welfare queen" instead of the very real "queen" Obama always sees, looking through the eyes of love.

I didn't see a welfare queen in that commercial. Maybe, you seeing that says more about your own prejudices than about the makers of the commercial.

As for the rest, I agree with the points David made.

 

[AMDG]

Thank you Davidnic.

And fyi, Fantine, I do not believe it's fine to violate President Obama's privacy, make a fractured fairy tale of his childhood, and malign his dead parents. This is exactly what Obama has been telling us to believe about his parents, so I am not "maligning" them one bit and furthermore Obama is not a private citizen.