Just barely a year, and we've lost half a million of our fellow Americans.
I think the prosecution made a very strong case to the Senate this week. It'll be interesting to see what defense is presented, beyond procedural things like the legality of the case, which has already been decided.
What I've seen so far from the defense has been examples of people other than the former president calling people to fight for their rights, etc. But Cory Booker and Nancy Pelosi don't have mindless mobs waiting to do illegal or unlawful bidding. And if the president is to be held to higher standards when it comes to breaking the law or dereliction of duty, he also needs to be held to higher standards in terms of words he uses. For the president, words do matter.
If the Republican senators vote to acquit, they will do a grave disservice to the nation as well as to their own party. Many people are already leaving the party, and there's talk of some conservatives forming a new party that represents true conservative and broader American values that today's Republican leadership seems to have lost.
The former president was an aberration that has never represented the values of most Americans, especially in terms of law and order, but also in terms of justice and equality for all and for our standing as a leader and beacon for the free world. These values are pretty much the same, whether you're Republican or Democrat.
Voters will have to come out in force in two years to begin removing these self-serving, spineless traitors.
Lots of people watch the Super Bowl more for the commercials than for the game itself. That might have been the case this year especially, with such a lopsided game.
That said, I didn’t watch any of the game or the commercials. But I did see one ad later online. The two-minute Jeep ad, titled The Middle and narrated by and starring Bruce Springsteen, ran during the fourth quarter, when the score was already hopelessly lopsided. I don’t know how many had already tuned out at that point, but those who stayed were treated to a beautiful ad that celebrated unity in America, focusing on the heartland. The critics at Advertising Age gave it five stars – their highest rating, calling it “a work of art. One that, at some level, is meant to sell Jeeps. But a work of art nonetheless.”
The ad was groundbreaking just for being the first time Bruce Springsteen has done a commercial. He certainly didn’t do it just for the money.
Despite the creative kudos, the ad seemed to cause some controversy on a few counts. I took some time to read through the comments posted on the Jeep website. Without doing a precise count, the general reaction seemed to be favorable, But some of the negative response was pretty strong, falling along the same divisive political lines we’ve been hearing too much of for the past four years and, ironically, exactly what the ad was hoping to help us get past as a nation.
Some commenters objected to using Springsteen, since he’s been a vocal critic of the previous administration’s policies and rhetoric.
Others were upset with Jeep for talking about divisiveness and, specifically, for a reference to the “re-United States of America.” I saw some comments that could have been lifted from the previous president’s tweets or from FOX News – rehashing phrases like fake news, the elite media, cancel culture, etc.
I find it ironic that these negative comments come from supporters of a president who never made even a slight attempt to bring the nation together, but instead constantly spewed hate toward those of us who didn’t support him. This, while President Biden genuinely attempts to find common ground with those who didn’t vote for him -- the very common ground that the Jeep ad celebrates.
Maybe there’s simply no way to win with the extreme right. I hope I’m wrong.
Click here to see the Jeep ad. Listen for the words about common ground…
“It’s no secret…The middle has been a hard place to get to lately. Between red and blue. Between servant and citizen. Between our freedom and our fear.
Now, fear has never been the best of who we are. And as for freedom, it’s not the property of just the fortunate few; it belongs to us all. Whoever you are, wherever you’re from. It’s what connects us. And we need that connection. We need the middle. We just have to remember the very soil we stand on is common ground.”
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For The National Road Safety Foundation, we are in the fourth year of the Drive Safe D.C. PSA Contest, for teens from D.C., Maryland and Virginia.
We ask young people to give us their ideas for a public service announcement about the dangers of speeding, which is one of the leading causes of teen deaths in the U.S.
We just picked this year's winner, Kaylee Franklin, 14, of Frederick, MD. She will be working with our producers to make her idea into a 30-second TV spot that will air on more than 170 TV stations nationally.
Here's a link to a story we arranged with the News-Post, serving the suburban Maryland area where Kaylee lives.
14 inches and counting
Honesty
Integrity
Humanity
Inclusion
Optimism
May God bless America
It can't happen too soon...