Opinion: Big Bird And America Want No Part Of The Big Bird Attack Ad
Ever since GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney uttered the words “Big Bird” a week ago during the first presidential debate in which President Barack Obama was – according to most polls – trounced, Big Bird is about all the “left” has been talking about – besides calling Romney a liar all week, of course.
In spite of a 7.8% unemployment rate, a weak economy, a nation so many trillions of dollars in debt that even Obama has lost count, and anti-American sentiment spreading throughout and beyond the Middle East, Obama and his fledgling campaign effort believes Big Bird and the PBS remarks made by Mitt Romney should now be the focus of this election.
Quite appropriately, the Public Broadcast Service-affiliates involved with the Sesame Workshop have respectfully asked the Obama campaign to stop using the popular children’s character of Big Bird, but the Obama campaign has only responded by saying that it will review their concerns.
As appropriately honest as possible, the Sesame Workshop made the statement to the Obama campaign: “Sesame Workshop is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization and we do not endorse candidates or participate in political campaigns. We have approved no campaign ads, and as is our general practice, have requested that the ad be taken down.”
What’s with the wait? What’s with the “review”? There is absolutely no wait or “review” necessary. Just take the sophomoric ad off the air as requested by its creators.
First of all, the ad wasn’t all that funny or clever. Additionally, making mention of Bernie Madoff and Mitt Romney in the same ad was reminiscent of the horrendous ad in which Team Obama referred to Romney as a murderer of a laborer’s wife. The Big Bird ad – as well as others – has made people who lean both to the political “right” and the political “left” wonder why the Obama campaign is dragging out the “moment-in-time” Big Bird comment by Mitt Romney so long. Does the Obama campaign really think that Americans are concerned with the topic of subsidizing the Public Broadcast Service when there are so many other topics currently running through Americans’ troubled-minds? What, pre tell, are they thinking?
Quite unbelievably, Americans are more inundated with news stories via the Obama campaign about Big Bird in relation to Mitt Romney – now enhanced with the attack ad – than reading or hearing news about the United States Congress’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s investigation of the Benghazi, Libya attack and the new information released by U.S. Security Officer Eric Nordstrom who contends that he asked the State Department twice for more security at the Embassy where four Americans were killed including Ambassador Chris Stevens – long before the September 11 deadly terrorist attacks occurred.
The Obama campaign’s thinking – or non-thinking – that America will be distracted by Big Bird when there are so many other really important issues involving real people is nothing more than an insult to every Americans’ intelligence.
About Scott Paulson
Scott Paulson writes political commentary for Examiner.com and teaches English at a community college in the Chicago area. The views and opinions expressed in this post are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of CBS Local.
