Nancy Pelosi has last laugh

Nancy Pelosi has last laugh:

Critz beats Burns (and his magic buttons).

TV Ad Depicts Cartoon Nancy Pelosi Being Tortured

Scenes from Right Change's
"The Attack of the 50-Foot Pelosi" TV Ad:

Have we become so inured to all the violent imagery and talk being directed towards Democrats that we can accept seeing a cartoon depiction of the Speaker of the House being hit multiple times with laser-like beams and writhing in pain in a TV ad and simply shrug it off?

The commercial is by a group called Right Change (Pittsburgh City Paper's Chris Potter has background on them here) and it's part of an $83,000 ad buy in the Pittsburgh and Johnstown media markets.

Titled "The Attack of the 50-Foot Pelosi," it's pro Republican Tim Burns in the special election race for the late US Rep. John Murtha's seat. According to Right Change, "The ad uses new technology for political ads with humor and cutting-edge animation."

I'm so glad that "new technology" was used to depict torturing (possibly to death) an elected official. I'm guessing that "humor" is to be found because it's an animated piece that has a (straw man) monster.

Of course there's nothing really new in describing a strong woman as a "monster." It's actually pretty old hat even by South Park standards (Barbra Streisand was made into a mechanical Godzilla-like monster on the show over a decade ago).

I'm guessing that it was deemed perfectly acceptable to depict Nancy Pelosi WRITHING AND SCREAMING IN PAIN because she is a "monster" from San Francisco.

Ha ha!

But I don't accept that.

What's next?

A cartoon Pelosi being shot with cartoon bullets spilling cartoon blood?

Would that be alright?

Is it somehow more acceptable to try to kill the Speaker of the House with magical Tim Burns buttons than with guns?

Can you imagine the uproar that would be had over an ad that had similarly depicted Sarah Palin (or even George Bush or Dick Cheney)?

Now here's where I fully admit that I have not personally seen this ad on the air and that I only heard about it because my sister, Gina, saw it aired multiple times on KDKA TV and she was floored by it and kept telling me to check it out.

I called KDKA today hoping to ask someone there what standards they had for the ads they run. (Obviously they have some standards. They wouldn't run ads that, say, contain nudity or profanity. )

Someone at the station had to view the ad and approve it. (I once knew a woman who worked for NBC whose sole job was to make sure that their ads didn't conflict with their network programming content -- no diet product ads after a story on famine, for example.)

I was eventually directed to a woman who I assume is in their advertising department who said that I could not quote her and who hung up on me. Nice! (Yes, I gave my full name and identified myself as a blogger.) She seemed to think that my beef should be solely with the ad agency and the account and not the station.

Well, I've been blogging for nearly six years now and in all that time and in all my Photoshops I have managed to somehow never depict an elected official -- or anyone else for that matter -- being lasered and screaming in pain, and yet a television station has no problems broadcasting this on the public airwaves.

If you have a problem with this -- if you haven't been numbed to the outrageousness of it -- maybe you might want to consider calling KDKA and telling them that it is not acceptable to torture any politician -- even a cartoon one -- in a television commercial.

Their switchboard number is: 412-575-2200 (It rings for a very long time).

UPDATED: Heard it (was out of the room) on WTAE TV (local ABC affiliate) this morning: Main desk at 412-242-4300, Email here

Caught part of it on WPXI TV (local NBC affiliate) last night: Phone: 412-237-1100

Finally, here's the full ad in all its gory:

UPDATE: I just saw it on air on KDKA (5/14/10, 4:44 PM).

UPDATE 2: Heard it (was out of the room) on WTAE TV (local ABC affiliate) this morning: Main desk at 412-242-4300, Email here

Caught part of it on WPXI TV (local NBC affiliate) last night: Phone: 412-237-1100

Saw it three times on KDKA TV on yesterday's afternoon news.

UPDATE 3: LINKS TO THIS POST:
Shakesville "Oh My Aching Sides" (by Melissa McEwan)
A Spork in the Drawer "Not-So-Random Question" (by Spork Incident)
Crooks and Liars "Mike's Blog Roundup" (by Bluegal)
Politics Daily "Pelosi Takes the Heat: 'If I Were Not Effective They Wouldn't Care About Me'" (by Melinda Henneberger)
.

Burns' Lie Fest

I keep seeing this ad on my teevee and it (excuse the pun) burns me up every time.

How many lies can you spot?


Moreover, the entire theme of the ad is one huge lie as PA2010 pointed out the impossibility of repealing HCR last week.

Also, meant to mention that President Clinton will be stumping for Critz in Johnstown on Sunday. Details here.