In the Washington, D.C., area, local transit agency Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (Metro) is getting some backlash for running an ad that literally tells President Barack Obama to go to hell, reports the L.A. Times.
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The ad reads:
Barack Obama wants politicians and bureaucrats to control America’s entire medical system. Go to hell Barack.
The ad is sponsored by the producers of the movie “Sick and Sicker,” which criticizes President Obama’s push to provide universal health to its citizens. Using Canada’s health care system as its model, the documentary is supposed to reveal the negative issues that arise “when the government becomes your doctor.”
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Virginia Congressman Rep. Jim Moran isn’t keeping quiet about what he feels is a disrespectful blow to the President:
“When we are talking about an advertisement on taxpayer-funded facilities, as is the case with Metro, it should meet the minimum standards of propriety,” says Moran. “I don’t think we want our children to see a public facility like this displaying words telling the president to go to hell.”
Interestingly enough, the advertisement is actually protected by the First Amendment of free speech. A Metro spokesman adds, “We may not decline ads based on their political content.” And according to recent history, the Metro isn’t just blowing hot air.
In 1984, the Metro lost a court case, when it denied an advertiser the right to post an ad that criticized then-President Ronald Reagan, and the Metro was struck down again more recently with an ad involving marijuana.
The L.A. Times reports:
An Oklahoma congressman in 2003, upset over marijuana legalization ads on the Washington Metro system, put a measure in a spending bill to withhold transportation funds from transit agencies that allowed such ads. But a judge struck down the law.
We all understand the importance of upholding free speech, but it is clear that the intensity of insults directed at President Obama and his family are unprecedented. While it is reported that the subway ad will come down on its own in a couple of weeks, the larger problem of hateful attacks on POTUS is again neglected.
Just on Wednesday, who would think that a federal judge could admit to sending a grossly inappropriate e-mail about how President Obama’s mother had sex with a dog to friends and colleagues in 2012? If that doesn’t illustrate how racist and malicious some in this nation are, then nothing will.
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