Excellent reframe, Jesse. Makes me very happy when progressives/leftists, etc. put others on the defensive for once instead of vice versa.

wait, seriously; that was it? All that hype for that?

also, that cost $2.5 million?

Are you kidding, Jesse?  People ranted incessantly when no-one had seen the commercial.  I watched this with a room full of liberal democratic women during the Superbowl who, to a person, thought it was actually very pro-woman.  Forget faces - entire bodies are covered in egg!

Yes, out of context it was actually pro-choice - I heard an interview with the director of Planned Parenthood who said as much. But here’s the rub: the point of spending $2.5 million (plus all the free publicity they got) is to normalize in the public mind an emotional (though irrelevant) appeal masquerading as a rational argument for “You should always pick the ‘choice’ that old white men in Colorado Springs and Washington DC dictate to you, regardless of your own personal moral or medical circumstances.”

It’s a surrender.  I mean, think about what the “pro-life” position is.  It isn’t opposition to abortion, it certainly isn’t being happy when a difficult pregnancy results in a healthy baby (which is all the Tebow ad was about).  It’s about forcing women to continue pregnancies whether they want to or not.  The Tebow ad represents a recognition that the “pro-life” position is too unpalatable to mention, or even to allude to indirectly.

Yeah, this is definitely +1 for the folks who thought that the plan was to get rejected.

I think you missed the point, Mintim. Focus on the Family is an anti-choice organization, and they claim they hold the majority position, but they couldn’t say that in their most prominent ad placement ever. Why not? Doesn’t really matter—the end result is that they blew a ton of money for an ad that most people shook their heads at and wondered what the hell that was all about.

Geocrackr, I don’t agree.  I believe you accurately state their goal, but they didn’t come anywhere close to achieving it.  The ad was about Tebow and his mother and how happy she was that the pregnancy turned out successfully.  It had nothing to do with abortion, it didn’t even have anything to do with her choice to continue the pregnancy.

It’s about her.  It’s about one woman and her experiences.  People will look at the ad and say, oh, that’s nice, and make whatever choices their circumstances lead them to make, because people can endorse other people’s choices or be happy about their happiness, but people’s own choices relate to themselves.

I agree with Mike Toreno,  that ad is an implicit surrender—its also a kind of simultaneous narrowcasting and broadcasting. The expensive ad which the majority see is bland and indeterminate—lots of married women who wanted their babies had difficult pregnancies, or “thought they might lose their babies” or had some scary times and are thankful their kids are growing up happy and healthy and think of them as miracles.  That’s so conventional as to be totally stripped of emotion and meaning except for individuals watching the ad.  To most people it has nothing to do with abortion.  My own feeling is that FoF thought that the ad would be turned down and they’d get a huge knock on effect from the uproar and the secondary level discussions that would take place about the “harming” of christian voices.  Since, in the end, they had to actually run and pay for the ad (and it doesn’t sound like 2.5 million is nothing to FoF these days when they’ve laid off so many of their workers and receipts are down) they are now relying on the internet links and word of mouth to get the “real” story behind the ad out, without challenge, which is to say the story that its really “about” abortion.

I think they dodged a bullet and they knowingly didn’t make a big deal out of Tebow’s mother’s “choice” because it would have brought the illegality of Abortion in the Phillipines up and that is a reality that is just too ugly and provocative even for their own side.  They’ve lost the argument. But now we have to win it.  That is to say that they can win the ground game against abortion rights just by keeping on nibbling away at actual abortion provision and funding at the state level, harrassing vulnerable women and moving abortion provision out of hospitals and into clinics (which they’ve already done.).  We can’t win the overall battle for actual abortion services even if they cede it to us rhetorically (as they did in this ad). 

I wish NARAl and whatever other groups we have would fight hard to re-integrate abortion services into hospitals and general medical practices.  When other doctors find their work and patients picketed and harrassed, and themselves at risk for abortion provision within a hospital complex we will see a big shift in public attitudes towards the kind of violent faux civil disobledience tactics used by the anti abortion foes.  But until abortion is put back into regular gynecological practice that won’t happen. It will continue to be marginalized.

aimai

To be fair, aimai, I know of several regular gyno practices that offer abortions to their patients (in admittedly super-liberal western Oregon). I don’t think that even if the antis knew, they would picket, because that’s not nearly as good media as picketing Planned Parenthood or Dr. Carhartt’s clinic. Also, I think they’re aware that if they start screaming at women who are going to have their babies that the doctor who delivered their last three kids is a baby-killer, they’re going to get some backlash.

Again, this is a pretty liberal part of the country. Our PP doesn’t get picketed either, it’s just not that kind of town.

“Forget faces - entire bodies are covered in egg! “

Only if one doesn’t know the nature of Focus on the Family. Feminists do know what they are, so no, there is not egg on our faces.  They were too cowardly to actually say what they claim is the majority opinion. They cowarded away from their misogynstic platform.  It’s win for us, surely.

The ad felt like a cipher to me. It was as bland as possible so that a) it wouldn’t offend the uninitiated but b) it would bolster the confidence of the initiated as to the righteousness of their cause and their victimhood/ubiquity. 

It also served as a power play - to demonstrate that the right has control of the media, and that they can get their message played when liberals can’t. After the Citizens United decision I find that quite disturbing.

The death rate for placental abruption is 12% in the U.S.  Which is to say that 12% of the women who take Pam Tebow’s advice will die from it.  Not very pro-woman.

The ad was totally scrambled and senseless ... it really didn’t make any sense and I wasn’t even sure that it was ... THAT AD ... when it was all done.  I don’t think it did much for their ranks, numbers, etc.

I don’t think they believe that their target audience could understand the concept of pregnancy complications anyway.  or how there is more than one, and how they threaten women differently.

Props, Jesse. Subtlety does not make misogyny tasteful, in any way whatsoever. It is terrifying that Focus on the Family is inching closer and closer to pitting abortion against motherhood/pregnancy.

The ad was so innocuous as to be almost meaningless. I watched the game with a group of people who are far less politically involved than I. They were for the most part still left-leaners, but certainly they had heard nothing about the ad or the controversy, and weren’t expecting politics to intrude on their football bacchanal. They were, in fact, a perfect blind test control group, and when the ad aired it raised not one iota of discussion or debate. People kind of scratched their heads and shrugged in a “what was the point of that one?” way and then waited for the next goofy Doritos commercial.  They were completely unaffected by the FoF ad.

When I explained what the controversy was about, the place fell silent—uncomfortably so—like all the air had escaped the room, for just a few moments, and then we watched the survivors of a plane crash find the Bud Light cart and started debating whether that was the funniest commercial of the day.  Those people were just plain not interested in even thinking about the subject of abortion (pro-choice or anti-) on such a happy, carefree day.

Amanda, that would be true if she actually gave any advice, but she didn’t.  If you said 12% of the women who take Focus on the Family’s advice would die from it, that’s more accurate.  But actually, FOTF’s position isn’t giving advice to women which, if followed, has a good chance of killing them, it is about forcing women to do something which may kill them.

And that’s the key to the lameness of the ad, as Jesse notes.  They don’t come anywhere close to mentioning their real viewpoint.  They want the law to view women as containers, but they don’t come out and advocate that position, instead, they present an utterly unobjectionable story about a woman who had a healthy baby after a scary pregnancy.

Perhaps now we have our answer as to why this ad was permitted when other “political” ads have been rejected in the past? Maybe they *had* to soft-pedal it that much to get it through.

Sorry, got that wrong.  The link indicates that 12% of placental abruptions result in perinatal mortality, which is basically a very late term miscarriage or a stillbirth.  6% of maternal mortality cases worldwide are from the condition Pam Tebow says she has.

Hornet,
You’re right that the ad wasn’t explicitly controversial: but the problem is this exactly. There was barely any outrage, because Focus on the Family made a very implicit (and VERY misleading) association. It went something like this:

Do you like family? Yes. Do you like children? Yes. Do you like mothers that like their children? Yes. Well you’re one of us, come on over to Focus and the Family and let’s ban abortion.

The problem wasn’t with spelling out an anti-abortion stance. The problem was linking anti-abortionism (is that a legitimate ism?) with the voluntary and personal choice to carry a baby to term.

I read somewhere that FonTF were contractually obligated not to use the word “abortion” in their ad.

This ad felt like a PSA that we’d see in a country where abortion is illegal.  The mother is so worried about her “baby” and its health, but is applauded because she successfully brought the baby “in to this world.”  At no point does she talk about how dangerous her pregnancy was for her or her fear about losing her own life, because that irrelevant.  She gave up her right to her body and her life the second she got pregnant.

This was just another case of an advertiser pimping a website to see “the full ad”, just like GoDaddy.  Spend the minimum amount to get on the air and then put whatever you like on your website, where CBS / NFL have no control over content.

It’s just like Tiffany W. just said above.  Throw some clues out there, redirect to the website, and then claim victory for your cause, facts be damned.

Agreed Tiffany. In fact, I think the ad was crafted in such an innocous way that, apart from who sponsored it, it could just as easily have been construed as a pro-choice commercial. I can’t whatch the clip above right now (I’m at work, shhhh), but as I remember it, the take-away could easily have been: “I’m Tim Tebow’s mom. I made a choice. Luckily, you can too.”

That’s how I recalled it, please correct me on #24 if I’m wrong.

Woah… Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania just died.  He was an interesting character.

Excellent, Jesse. Makes me glad when progressives, defensive for once instead of vice versa.

Right on, Hornet. Way to claim our argument as your’s, Pam Tebow.

I wanted to say this when we were all harping on the network for working with FotF. They worked with the organisation to defang the commercial.

This is exactly what I expected. Something so bland and lifeless you could serve it up at McDonalds.

Which isn’t to say that it isn’t still damaging and pernicious; it’s still an attempt to sneak the message by our defenses.

Which is to say that 12% of the women who take Pam Tebow’s advice will die from it.

True, but 100% of Catholic cable channels will air creepy anti-choice porn tributes to them.  Look on the bright side!

I don’t think they believe that their target audience could understand the concept of pregnancy complications anyway.  or how there is more than one, and how they threaten women differently.

Nor would they care if they did.  Women’s problem are trivial, by definition.  Especially if they’re experienced in service of teh Babeez.

A big component of buying a Super Bowl ad is getting the free publicity that comes from having bought a Super Bowl ad. That’s where they really succeeded. Plus, being there with their little innocuous ad in the company of all that beer and Doritos made them look a whole lot more mainstream than they really are. The real goal is to direct curious traffic to their website, where the hard sell on anti-choice policy takes place.

If they’d ended that ad with “Support Health Care Reform and Universal Coverage”, it wouldn’t have been the least bit surprising.  Hell, if they’d ended it with “Have yourself a hearty bowl of Cambell’s Chicken Soup” it wouldn’t have been out of place either.

But yeah, this was all an eyeball ad.  They’re trying to get people to visit the website, and I have absolutely no doubt they succeeded.  The only question now is whether the $2.5 million ad buy will be worth the price.

BTW, did that ad make anyone else think Mary Steenburgen was doing a Geritol commercial?

Avogadro,
I had my first child in Evanston, IL. and my nice woman gynecologist told me up front that if I had any kind of problem with the pregnancy she wouldn’t perform the abortion and I’d have to go to a clinic.  Abortion has, on the whole, very much moved out of hospitals and out of general gynecological practice. Why do you think Dr. Tiller was one of the last doctors to perform late term abortions? Women were flying in from all over to go to his clinic because their own ob/gyn’s wouldn’t perform the service for them. And these were “therapeutic” abortions not the dreaded “slut” abortions.

aimai

They have a clip of a discussion with Pam, her husband, and some FOTF guy.  They talk about their reaction to the pregnancy and the difficulties, they talk about how Pam had made a decision already that she was going to carry through the pregnancy no matter what, and their conviction that God had a particular plan and how everything fitted into that plan.  The FOTF guy asks them toward the end what they have to say to women with unexpected pregnancies, Pam discusses how there are resources and help available and how there’s more support available than you might think.  She says something like “women have an option, they have a choice”.  She says this in the context of urging women to make the choice she wants them to make, but !!!!!!

Anybody’s free to urge anybody to choose what they want them to choose, but what’s important is acknowledging their freedom to choose.

Her husband spent time in the Philippines weeping for the millions of lost babies, and his admonition to women is “don’t kill your baby”.  So yeah, that’s disgusting.  I notice he didn’t appear in the TV ad.  But Pam didn’t say anything that I thought was bad of her to say, whether I happen to agree with it or not.

I’m pretty disturbed by the enitre notion of tackling your mom and having it lead to egg on someone’s face.  That just seems wrong.

The soft sell upfront and hard sell on the website thing may not work how they want it to.  Right away, Pam Tebow brags about how she was fine with dying and refused to get prenatal care for most of her pregnancy.  That’s waaaaaaaay out of the mainstream.

So yeah, that’s disgusting.  I notice he didn’t appear in the TV ad.  But Pam didn’t say anything that I thought was bad of her to say, whether I happen to agree with it or not.

Well, that’s how they (to borrow an analogy) move the football down the field.  First, it’s a loving mother saying how she just knew gosh darn that there was a plan.  And she’s side by side with her Heisman winning son, so hey, God must exist or no one would have won the Heisman, right?

Then the FotF folks mention a wonderful plethora of resources.  And when you open them up, they talk about wonderful hospitals and generous adoption services and all these amazing private services you can receive from charities run by a tightly knit group of mega-rich evangelical businessmen and religious leaders.

And before you know it, they’re telling you about how mean old liberals don’t want any other women to have this plethora of privately funded elite minorities-need-not-apply services.  And how your friendly state SC legislator is just trying to pass a bill that will prevent women from going to those awful public clinics (swarming with nasty little colored people) and divert funds to a strong and respectable pillar of the community.  And the only way to get THAT bill passed, is to outlaw the abominable procedure that was going to kill your baby.

So don’t worry.  With FotF (much like with the mafia) you’re taken care of.  Just pay your church dues and say your Hail Marys, and we’ll make sure you are ok.  Welcome to the cult.

Folks-

This ain’t called a “culture war” for nothing.  Anybody with an IQ over room temperature knew that CBS wasn’t gonna allow a hard sell on this issue.  Of course it was going to be a link to a website.  The real value of this ad was that the over-reaction of pro choice groups to an ad they had not actually seen makes them look angry and narrow-minded.  The gives legs to the whole:  “See, we told you that these pro-choice women are just NUTS . . . .  bunch of angry feminists” thing.

The mock tackling in the ad is pretty standard super bowl stuff.  Football is a VIOLENT game and crazy tackling is now just an ad cliche.  What I can’t understand is why some key figures like O’Neill are claiming that the ad was a celebration of violence towards women.  Look, sometimes you’re the windshield, sometimes you’re the bug. FoF scored one.  Why make is so much worse by feeding into the old “humorless, angry, feminist” stereotype?

I agree that much ado about this ad eventually translated into nothing.

As a matter of fact, in a year of weak Super Bowl ads I found the Tebow spot to be highly forgettable - no matter what one’s stance is on abortion rights.

Folks-

Concern troll is Concerned.

$4 million total on baiting feminists?  I don’t know if that’s clever so much as stupid.

I mean, I really hope that they enjoy their bait as it flushes them into bankruptcy. I’m guessing the nearly 40% of their employees they’ve laid off LOVED this ad and all the money it represents.

Why make is so much worse by feeding into the old “humorless, angry, feminist” stereotype?

Yeah.  Women are such bitches.
What say we all go out, hop in the Dodge Charger, flip on the FloTV, and drink Bud Light till we puke?  Woo!  Screw you Feminism!  Stoopid Liebruls!  Go Palin!

Sour Kraut-

I would love to see Plan B in vending machines at the same price as a 20 oz. coke.  This nutty stuff isn’t helping.  I suppose that O’Neill will be leading a boycott against snickers for its violence against elderly women . . .

You’re right, Seth. This nutty stuff you’re doing on the thread isn’t helping. Go find DBK…maybe you and he can sit around tsk tsking about humorless bitchez and football monkeys together.

Zifnab, I think what *Pam* said was OK to say, NOT FOTF or Pam’s husband.  If one team moves the football down the field, it’s the other team’s fault.  Looking at this ad and the clip on the web, it looks to me like they’re backed up to the 1-inch line.  Why can’t we score a safety?

I mean, look at it.  Pam Tebow, in their—>anti-abortion message,<—says “women have options, they have a choice”(!)  And as Amanda says, her position as to her own personal circumstances is way out of the mainstream.  She straight up decided she was going to bear a significant risk of death due to her faith in God’s working in a particular way.  I mean, what’s the reaction to that other than, OK, if that’s what works for you that’s what works for you, but wow, other people have to be free to make different choices, because most of them are going to make different choices, and even the ones who don’t are probably going to want that choice to be available.

The “crisis pregnancy stuff”, yeah, I don’t like that, it is all lies and indoctrination and baby stealing.  Come in here and hand us your baby.  I read that right after Roe v. Wade, many many more single women who became pregnant kept their babies rather than give them up for adoption; Roe v. Wade empowered women to make their own reproductive choices, not only abortion but having and keeping their babies rather than allowing themselves to be shoved into a home and their babies taken.

But why can’t we shove their “services” back in their faces.  Point out how the “services” are all lies, about forcing women to behave in a particular way.  Tell them, if you want women to choose not to have abortions, give them some real help, help which recognizes their autonomy.  What if they gave women some cash and some childcare?

Pam Tebow said, I was faced with death if I chose to continue my pregnancy, and I continued it.  Women have a choice, this is what I chose If they’re able to move the ball down the field on that kind of play, it’s our fault.

Well, what?-

. . . OK.  Don’t shoot the messenger.  This thing was bungled in an epic manner.

Well then go and unbungle it, since clearly us feminists can’t manage such a thing without your guiding wisdom, O Mansplainer.

I have concern troll bingo just from the last 48 hours, BTW. Where is my prize?

I am pro-choice but I have sense of honor that forbids me from becoming an ideological buffoon just to strike at my enemies. Focus on the family is whacked but this ad is what pro-life should be all about. what would you rather have, that or mutilated fetuses? does nothing please some of you guys?

its okay to CHOOSE to have kids and to be happy you chose that right? even to encourage people to if thats what they believe right? Pro-choice isn’t pro-abortion right? some of you make me wonder….

“Well then go and unbungle it, since clearly us feminists can’t manage such a thing without your guiding wisdom, O Mansplainer.”

thats hilarious. You know you are a cliche right? and here Seth was talking about the appearance of, oh never mind.

Oh boy! Now our trolls are coming two by two, hurrah, hurrah…

Seriously? You *unironically* used the term “mutilated fetuses” in a post and I’M the cliche? I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

I’m not buying that a big feminist to-do about this ad wasn’t a PR disaster.  It comes off as condemning Pam Tebow’s decision.  To me, the ad seems to be rubbing bad pregnancy outcomes in the faces of people who’ve had them.  “Some suckers lost their baby AND their sight, but I got a football player out of the deal!” 

Anyone who knew about the context of the ad has thought about the “What if this pregnancy has a reasonable chance of killing me?” question.

I didn’t see a single feminist response to the ad that condemned Tebow’s decision. Every response I saw seemed to focus on the angle of, “yes, she made a decision, but don’t forget that she DOESN’T WANT YOU TO HAVE THAT LUXURY.”

I’m glad she didn’t die. I’m glad her baby didn’t die. I’m glad he apparently thrived in many ways. But she is still the absolute worst type of hypocrite, and deserves to be called on it.

I’m not endorsing the term “mutilated fetuses” Well What?, just pointing out that the ad had more class than the usual pro-lifer tactics i’m accustomed to. whats the matter? unhappy not to have your ideological enemies frothing at the mouth so you feeeel the power of the darkside? I for one applaud this unusual show of restraint from the pro-lifers.

In a way the ad isn’t even anti-choice, just a advocacy for making a particular choice. Maybe you could make a response ad where a mom talks about regretting having not aborted her child instead. Then out of nowhere he tackles her!

couldn’t help myself….

I for one applaud this unusual show of restraint from the pro-lifers.

Yes, it’s always much better when the psychopaths learn to be sneaky. That way nobody knows they’re psychopaths until it’s too late!

There’s nothing classy about taking away women’s autonomy, dude, no matter how you dress it up. I believe there was something about lipstick and pigs that perhaps applies here?

I think their advocating the choice they want you to make is refreshing and civilized as opposed to trying to advocate robbing people of their choice or criticize them for their choice or just covering your eyeballs in blood like usual. I think thats fair. There is nothing wrong with encouraging a particular choice, they think the potential person arising from a pregnancy is worth keeping the fetus for, people choose that all the time. its taking that choice away thats the problem (in an Sartrean sort of way, I think choice is what gives value in these situations). We can agree on that Well, what?

It just seems to me that people are bending over backwards to find fault just because they hysterically condemned the ad before even seeing it. Though, I can be even-handed about that, I think everyone was surprised that Focus can make an advert that isn’t completly unhinged.

Like, look at saraandersons post above for example…rubbing peoples face in it? no such thing occurrs in the ad. I think it might have had a football player in it because….it was for the superbowl!

you are probably right that they hope the ad is a trojan horse, but I think they overestimate their odds. no football ad is going to induce women to merrilly toss their right to choose away….

Yes, the concern is that WOMEN are going to “toss away” their right to choose based on this ad. Yes. 

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…..gasp….AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

I have to believe you are being willfully disingenuous, now, because if you really think FotF is just about touchy-feely “encouragement” then I’d worry for your safety when handling sharp objects or heavy machinery.

Well I do love making people laugh….....

Perhaps you aren’t used to the casual way that people on the internets sometimes type. split hairs if you like, you’re the one being disingenuous, my reference above to their typical unhinged-ness would seem to belie that characterization of my view.

I do not believe that FOTF is touchy-feely, . The ad however, is just what pro-life should be, pro-life, rather than anti-choice. My, it must really burn you up that your ideological enemy did something civilized that you can’t stew over while you cackle.

But “pro-life” is anti-choice. Otherwise they would be pro-choice. We do let people choose to keep their babies, really.

Pssst…..If you use sexist words like ‘hysterical’ you’re not going to come across as neutrally as you apparently want to.

Yes Jessi, thats why I said it is just what pro-life SHOULD be.

It so happens that the pro-life movement wants aborting fetuses to be regarded as murder and wants laws passed to prevent that. But I don’t think there is anything essential in that. One could hold fetuses as having some sort of living value but still respect a womans choice in the matter. Thats why when a woman has a miscarriage for a child she chooses to have and grieves over it no one mocks her for getting upset over nothing.

another way, Pro-life and pro-choice aren’t really natural opposites (though the movements are surely opposed), they each have a very different emphasis. The logical forms are very different. As has been frequently observed, pro-lifers are against people having abortions, but pro-choice is not therefore for people having abortions.  The pro-choice position is like free speech, you can see the value in people saying their piece without necessarilly believing that what everyone says is right. Pro-lifers are more like censors in this example.

Ginmar,

surely I can refer to a single post or person as being or acting hysterically without it therefore being expanded to suggest that all women must be hysterical, can’t I? earlier this same person shut someone down by referring to them as a “mansplainer”, surely a dig at men in general. I actually thought that was pretty hilarious though, I don’t tend to be a very pc lefty. Rush/Beck etc.. could be said to act hysterical about just about any issue they happen to be abusing.

no offense however, your advice is probably correct.

It so happens that the pro-life movement wants aborting fetuses to be regarded as murder and wants laws passed to prevent that.

Yes. Which is why it really doesn’t matter that, in a universe of fairies and unicorns, an alternate “pro-life” movement would be completely different and populated entirely by people who don’t want to control the bodies of other adults.

There are people who value fetuses but don’t want to ban abortion. Those people don’t belong to Focus on the Fetus. The ad does not actually reflect the positions of its creators—it’s a very, very expensive lie, in essence.

You seem to want to completely divorce the ad itself from the people who produced the ad, and the climate they hope to create. That any money they make off this Awesome Ad of True Pro-Lifey Goodness will be used to limit the rights and choices of actual women.

This is what makes you seem so disingenuous.

Well, that and what Ginmar said.

er, sorry—that should read:

That any money they make off this Awesome Ad of True Pro-Lifey Goodness will be used to limit the rights and choices of actual women does not seem to occur to you, or if it does, it doesn’t seem to bother you.

Well, what? -

Thanks for inviting me to “unbungle”  Thoughts for the leaders of pro-choice organizations:

Thought 1.  Do not get really upset about something that you HAVEN’T actually seen.  That’s how you feed the media frenzy and turn your opponent’s 2.8 million worth of advertising into the media equivalent of 300 million.  When you get upset about something that you HAVEN’T actually seen, you can look incompetent and angry.  Incompetent with a side of angry is not the image that you want to project.

Thought 2.  Do not make ridiculous comments about “violence towards women” in a whimsical ad.  Humorless, stuffy, and narrow . . . that’s not the image that you want to project.  Making FoF look even slightly cool is not what you want.

Thought 3.  When you mess up stop and regroup before making more statements.  Remember that it is about helping women and not just about “winning.”

Massimo -

“Pro-life” is the name for the movement that advocates making abortion ILLEGAL.  They may soften their message by asking us to “choose life”, but the purpose of the movement is to make abortion illegal.  That is, you do not have a choice.  You get pregnant, you have a baby.  There is no point whatsoever in “applauding” this ad, because the ad is for an organization that wants to make abortion illegal.  And if you do not want abortion to be illegal, then you are not pro-life.  You are pro-choice.  It doesn’t matter what pro-life “should” be.  Pro-life will never be pro-choice, because their entire purpose is to make abortion illegal, no matter the cost in lives.

I think you make some good points.

as opposed to the expected horror show or preachiness, the ad simply showed a real woman proud of her choice.

well, call me sucker if you want, but I hope one day that people can stop talking past eachother and see the life affirming values pro-choice has to offer…people piling on makes that harder. people reading sinister things into the ad makes pro-choice look sillier. i don’t mean to divorce the ad from fotf, but any ad really has a being of its own, and they might regret taking the focus OFF the fetus and making it about a womans experience and her choice. I applaud that. throw in some derrida and you have an ad that properly deconstructed reveals the opposite of what dobson intended, a life affirming pro-choice line of thinking.

I like to play with given terms like pro-life/pro-choice, I really just hate intertia. I also like nasty and mean words. Its part of my charm.

I agree that dobson hopes the ad will help them win friends and influence people. but I think pro-choce advocates should have turned right around and applauded the civility of the ad and supported a woman who is proud of her choice, and not just women we agree with. imagine the look on the unicorns face if that had happened.

OMG.

Back slowly away from the undergrad philosophy department.

p.s. What you call “charm” is what other people call, “god, that guy is an obnoxious shit.”

Well I guess I was wrong about you, Seth. I hereby crown you King Feminist. Show us wimmens The Way!

Command us, great leader! We’re so hapless and useless without you! It’s incredible that we even managed to get the vote without your wisdom heading the battle. ...

Seriously, how are you Wonder Twins NOT aware of how you sound? Any good intentions you had have been destroyed by your complete inability to type anything that doesn’t make you sound like smarmy assholes.

When you have spent years on the front lines of this bullshit, when you have been spat on and harassed by people who call your Jewish boss “Hitler,” when you have have sat in on committees and press conferences and watched the anti-choice forces take Every. Single. Instance. of good faith on your part as an opportunity to steamroll over peoples’ lives, when you have watched them lie through their teeth to police officers and when you have done your goddamn best to intervene when they abuse and berate women, right in front of you, who are just trying to get to their fucking birth contol, knowing full well that YOU, not THEY, will be the one who lands in jail for “harassment”...

THEN you talk to me about inertia, and word play, and “helping women instead of winning.”

In other words, when I see your ass out there actually helping women, my dear Monday morning quarterbacks, THEN you can talk to me about helping women.

Hey, hey, we’re not giving the trolls enough credit. I haven’t personally *seen* Birth of a Nation—maybe just ‘cause it’s by the KKK doesn’t mean it’s offensive! Ditto the Protocols of the Elders of Zion; I’m not making any judgments about that until I see it myself! Nazis-schmazis!

Seriously, people are too quick to judge; just because an organization is solely and completely dedicated to degrading, hurting, and killing you and people like you doesn’t mean that an important piece of propaganda that they are joyfully spreading about will have anything *bad* in it! You should always give them the benefit of the doubt—maybe after 999 times of stomping you square in the face the 1000th time will be different!

Like that guy breaking into your house at midnight—maybe he just wants to bum a smoke. It would be silly to try anything preemptive; won’t *you* feel like a jerk once he tells you that he wasn’t intending any raping or murdering that particular night—egg *all* over your face! Truly, a wait-and-see approach, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that you are in trouble, is always best.

Sorry for the snark, I generally really *do* try to treat trolls with the respect and thoughtful analysis their opinions deserve. But I can’t get the emoticon for a wet shit-scented raspberry noise to work right tonight, for some reason…

ha ha, wowee, I was trying to be self deprecating (it was sort of obvious i wasn’t winning you over), but you take yourself way to seriously and don’t want to hear that. all this great leader this and that because someone has the nerve to disagree with you. goshes, is everything that I said so wrong? you don’t agree with any of it? I agreed with you on some things but you would rather have an enemy and be surrounded by people who just agree with your infallible wisdom i guess. looking back over the posts you seem to mostly just insult people, engaging almost nothing of substance. but i guess you know it all. you sound like a left version of rush limbaugh.

no one suggested anything about trying to win over the handfulls of die hards who protest clinics. guess you just like to tell war stories. oh thats right, you use it as your stick of authority. everyone else is wrong because you attended protests and meetings.

A.) Yes, Tim Tebow’s mom does have a more than passing resemblance to Mary Steembergen.  It’s kinda creepy, she’s like a long neck more worn version. 

B.) The two seconds of screen time tackle on her took is right up there with cartoon violence as the number one threat to our society.  It doesn’t attempt to distort the concept of abuse, it was a stupid marketing tactic to associate Tim Tebow as a football player but since he’s been a QB since day one of his career him tackling makes no sense.  In all honesty the tackle was there to associate Tim Tebow with football for the non-college football watchers.  Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar. 

Addendum: If you call me a troll, you get a special place in my heart where I keep frothing internet people who can’t discern reality from their personal vendettas.

C.) FotF’s goal was to get attention, they got it.  How many people are going to roll over to their website who can really be swayed?  Very few.  Go Daddy gets hit because it shows Danica Patrick + no name actress in bikinis.  Nothing really innovative or fancy.  Just gratuitous amounts of skin.  Both sides are going to declare victory over the ad.  The reality is that pro-choice won this round handily.  They created a vague commercial that takes the center position on pro-choice, you should keep it because it’s your baby but it doesn’t need to be a legal right withdrawn.  Atleast that’s what the commercial insinuates from its extremely vague story.  The full commercial that aired during pre-game was laughable.  The edited down version was just plain sad. 

D.) Liberals can’t have egg on their face for overblowing a commercial that turned out to be quietly going their way.  It doesn’t make them seem crazy, if anything it makes FotF look weak on the basis that they can’t compete idea for idea with the pro-choice crowd and created this vague story for the sake of avoiding controversy they can’t win.

E.) Tim Tebow certainly didn’t hurt his prospects in the NFL with this commercial, though you wonder how far he would have gone with a more controversial ad or would he ever picket an abortion clinic?  The boy likes money more than god that’s something we can all agree on.

The pro-choice position is like free speech, you can see the value in people saying their piece without necessarilly believing that what everyone says is right. Pro-lifers are more like censors in this example.

OK…if being a censor means “I’m going to spit on you, beat you, terrorize you and/or kill you if I don’t like what you have to say.”

Oh yes, it’s CLEARLY a win for FotF. I mean, millions upon millions of dollars spent on a soft, ineffective ad that most people had no idea what the point was.  Total WIN! 

But, you know, feminists talked about it for a little while before hand, which totally means they were HYSPTERICAL and CONDEMING Ms. Tebow, nevermind that no one was or did, they were just cuz they were talking about it!

Spending millions to get feminists to talk about stuff is a total win!

great, concern trolls.  thanks for informing us of your oh-so-interesting manpinions.

“guess you just like to tell war stories. oh thats right, you use it as your stick of authority. everyone else is wrong because you attended protests and meetings. “

Translation:  massimo will deny the real life experiences of people who actually know what they’re talking about in favor of his manpinions, which are clearly more correct . .. because he says so. 

Well, I’M convinced!

guess you just like to tell war stories. oh thats right, you use it as your stick of authority. everyone else is wrong because you attended protests and meetings.

No, everyone else is not wrong. YOU are wrong, because YOU don’t know what the fuck you are talking about.

People who actually DO know something about the abortion rights issue, who don’t think of it as a fun philosophical football to kick around while they wank over Derrida, know that every time anti-choice forces have succeeded in making womens’ lives worse, it is because some ignorant person like you pled with us to “just give them a chaaaaaaaaaaaaance! They’re really so niiiiiiiiiice, they just love baaaaaaaaaaabies.”

It’s not about winning, or losing, or war stories. It’s about being smart enough to know when someone is lying in your face so they can stab you in the back.

Oh, it’s being USED as a PR disaster for pro-choice groups, but only among the wingnuts who wouldn’t have any positive take on pro-choice groups anywhere.

The right wing spin is already in place - see how the nasty feminists attacked Mrs. Tebow when all she actually did was be glad she had a miracle baby, and if they can do that, then they really must be against all babies!

And yes, there are people who are going to buy that, because there are plenty of people who have no interest in any backstory or underlying history, or even facts, and assume that they can judge for themselves the complete meaning of what they see in front of them. It’s obvious. Just like the Bible.

If all this was deliberate, then the FOF assholes pulled off a uniquely slick and successful version of their standard fast and loose, fact-free spin machine.

But to all the people saying that therefore, the pro-choice, feminist, and gay rights groups were wrong to preemptively react is exactly the same sort of “let the bullies have their way, they’ll get tired of it eventually” after the fact advice that never actually works.

The biggest objections in advance were NEVER that Mrs. Tebow had a baby. They were that CBS allowed a clearly biased and entirely political organization to have an ad (however inoffensive) when other groups were refused in the past - like the UCC being unacceptably controversial and political when they said that everyone was welcome in their church -  that Mrs. Tebow’s story was being told and spun as being about her CHOICE, but was being used as fuel for an organization that abhors the existence of that choice, and that Focus on the Family is a bigoted, evil hate group.

Regardless of the content of the actual ad, none of those things changed, and there is nothing about the ad that did or should cause anyone to rethink their opinions of those things.

It is NEVER successful to stop objecting just because the bullies get slicker.

Allright, still going strong!

I can see you love the straw man Well, What?. As any honest person can see above, I agree with you that Fotf has ulterior motives. But Birth of a Nation the ad is not.

Gypsy: If Well, What? has attended protests and helped women, I sincerely think that’s great. Learn to read, no one denied her experience. Are you suggesting that someone is right BECAUSE they attended protests? Thats childish. But I am a man, so I must be wrong. I mean, its not like men ever figured anything out in world history. They just grunted and played football right? grow up.

Lymis is wrong, go to a liberal (though, obviously not radical) site like huffpo and look at the comments. plenty of lefties have the honesty to admit when an overreaction takes place. it manifestly isn’t just wingnuts pointing out the obvious.

You’re not wrong because you’re a man, you’re wrong because your ideas are bad, your premise is false, and your suggestions are counterproductive with a side of condescension.

But hey, I forgot, thats just a mansplanation on my part, so I must be mistaken. Just a semi-articulate mental hick-up between beating my girlfriend and hunting buffalo.

Well, What?, were going to have to just disagree here. I’m not the only person dishing out condescension by far. I agree with you that this is getting counterproductive.

Congratulations, massimo.  You’ve convinced exactly no one, but you have made a couple of feminists angry.  Big win!

Christ on a sidecar, I’m a man, and I think you’re a rampaging asshole.