October 10, 2002

In what Democratic National Committee spokeswoman Maria Cardona says is an attempt to "have people visualize in a humorous way" the Democrats' opposition to the Social Security privatization plan, the DNC's website features an animated cartoon showing President Bush pushing two people in wheelchairs down a slope in such a way that they end up hitting the ground head or face first.

The first character, a middle-aged man planning retirement, is pushed by Bush into a wheelchair which then slides backward down a declining graph line that presumably represents the recent losses in stock market value. The man somersaults several times and hits his head on the ground several times, all the while screaming. The older woman in a wheelchair Bush next pushes also screams the whole way when she is pushed face-first down the slope. Her ride is shorter and she presumably ends at the bottom in a crash that produces a cloud of dark dust.

The New York Times reported that the ad went up at some point between October 2nd and 3rd, and is still available at press time on October 10th at http://www.democrats.org/social_insecurity/. The chairman of the Republican National Committee, Marc Racicot, called the ad "beyond offensive," to which Cardona reportedly replied, "Do they think it's disrespectful? ...If they are objecting to the artwork and not the substance, that's a problem right there."

The DNC flash ad is reminiscent of the recent Budweiser commercials that spoofed situations of elder abuse to entice people to drink their beer. The goals of both campaigns may be quite laudable in a free speech nation, but one does have to wonder if either of these institutions would think depicting child abuse "in a humorous way" was a good means of soliciting support. If they're right, we have a very long way to go.