Michelle Rhee's group defends offensive ad that targets schools and overweight people.

[madfloridian]

Run time: 02:34 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UXgU4n7obA   Posted on YouTube: August 14, 2012 By YouTube Member: studentsfirst Views on YouTube: 834   Posted on DU: September 06, 2012 By DU Member: madfloridian Views on DU: 264

 
I guess Michelle Rhee and her anti-public schools group called Students First...believe that ridicule and humiliation work for their purpose.

I remember that Rhee was invited to appear at the DNC convention with Chelsea Clinton, and her group was invited to preview the anti-union, anti-teacher pro-charter school movie there also.

They even took time to write up their defense of this series of ads. They are proud of them.

From the link at You Tube:

Exclusive behind-the-scenes footage from the production of the StudentsFirst "U.S. Education Olympics" campaign.

Throughout the campaign, our critics complained that the data we referenced (from the extremely reputable 2009 PISA study) is false or was used out of context. Even more curiously, some pointed out that the United States has never aspired to be tops in the world in educating our kids; therefore our mediocre ranking is not a problem (talk about aiming low).

Other critics willfully ignored that our "athlete" is a metaphor for the U.S. Education System (although in every spot our announcer clearly states "This is the U.S. Education System"), and so declared we were making fun of students, teachers or people who are clumsy and overweight. But the only people we were actually making fun of are those who think our education system is working just fine the way it is.

Our message is simple and clear: if today's U.S. Education System were an athlete competing against the rest of the world, it would be old, bloated, unprepared and yet believe it was winning in every category.

The explanation is simplistic, the ad is ridiculous. The defense of it is pathetic. Our country used to be better than that.

Yet now this woman is welcome at our party's convention.

Here are the other two ads in the series I have found.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeCz_ivXT90&feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJre2CMzY-E&feature=relmfu

[madfloridian]

1. I believe this is the "controlled controversy" tactic, one of Karl Rove's methods.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/1143

"Yet Blackwell's foundation, the Leadership Institute, is not a Republican organization. It's a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) charity, drawing the overwhelming majority of its $9.1 million annual budget from tax-deductible donations. Despite its legally required "neutrality," the institute is one of the best investments the conservative movement has ever made. Its walls are plastered with framed headshots of former students -- hundreds of state and local legislators sprinkled with smiling members of the U.S. Congress, and even the perky faces of two recently crowned Miss Americas. Thirty-five years ago, Blackwell dispatched a particularly promising 17-year-old pupil named Karl Rove to run a youth campaign in Illinois; Jeff Gannon, a far less impressive student, attended the Leadership Institute's Broadcast Journalism School.

...."The Leadership Institute teaches the same principle. Controlled controversy -- making your point in a manner so bombastic that your opponents blow their cool -- is a Blackwell specialty. Before the 2004 Republican Convention, the conservative elder personally went to a drugstore and bought little pink heart stickers, bandages and purple nail polish. At home, he made the "Purple Heart Band-Aids" that he later distributed in Madison Square Garden to mock John Kerry's war wounds. From Blackwell's perspective, the Kerry camp's outrage at the gag was a tactical disaster. Democratic Party chairman Terry McAuliffe, Blackwell says, kept the story alive for days by "running around like a chicken with its head cut off."

[Enthusiast]

2. I believe you are correct............nt