The abortion bowl
by digby
For those who are complaining that Colbert's The Definitely Not Coordinated With Stephen Colbert Super PAC's new ad against Mitt trivializes our elections, well I'm afraid that ship sailed when the Supremes ruled in favor of Citizens United. If you think Stephen Colbert is offensive, get a load of this:
Anti-abortion activist Randall Terry has been running graphic ads of aborted fetuses in key primary states, as my colleague Tim Murphy has reported. Now the gruesome ads are coming to the Super Bowl.
Nothing says "pass the dip" like a bloody fetus. Normally, Terry wouldn't be able to get these kinds of ads on television. So he's launching a non-serious campaign for president (running as a Democratic challenger to President Obama) in order to exploit a loophole in Federal Communications Commission rules that requires station to run campaign ads in the weeks ahead of a primary election—no matter how grisly they might be. In the 45 days ahead of a primary and 60 days ahead of a general election, candidates for federal office can run whatever they want on local stations, as long as they pay for the airtime.
Yes, the FCC can try to fine you a half-million dollars for a "wardrobe malfunction," but bundles of bloody body parts is A-okay.
Here's what you're going to be seeing:
The good news is that they can only run in states with primaries 45 days ahead of a primary, so anyone who isn't living in a Super Tuesday state should be spared. For now.
I wrote earlier about this creative campaign by Terry. They are very serious about using these new rules to proselytize and lie and there's not much anyone can do about it as long as it's "election related." Terry is recruiting candidates all over the country for the specific purpose of being able to run these ads.
You have to appreciate this worldview though. To zealots, nothing is more important than their own crusade and they just don't think about anything else. It must be nice to live in such a black and white world where the trade-offs are so obvious and everything is so simple.
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