Double standard for a Dem

By Clarice Feldman

Bloomberg reports that marketers are puling ads featuring Tiger Woods from prime time.

Dec. 8 (Bloomberg) -- No advertisements featuring Tiger Woods have run on prime-time television broadcast networks or 19 cable channels since late last month, after reports of his extramarital affairs, according to data from Nielsen Co. [snip]

The No. 1 ranked golfer's standing with the public has plunged in the wake of reports of infidelity that followed a Nov. 27 car accident outside his home near Orlando, Florida. Woods' ranking among celebrity endorsers plunged to 24th from 6th, according to the Davie Brown Index, which is used to gauge the ability of personalities to influence shoppers. [snip]

The golfer's $110 million in annual income from endorsements and tournaments, as estimated by Forbes magazine, hinges on his standing with consumers. Woods ranked as the world's fourth-highest paid celebrity in the 12 months through June 30, the magazine said. In October, he became the first athlete to top $1 billion in career earnings.

It seems that marketers are concerned that consumers will be so outraged by the news of Woods' extramarital affairs and fall from the make believe grace with which he's been surrounded that it will cost advertisers lost sales to continue with him as their spokesperson.

But my friend Janet notes that there is a double standard involved. In politics, certain figures one would assume would be vulnerable to removal for sexual misconduct of any sort that might have an impact on youngsters seem not to be judged by the same standard.

Obama's "Safe School Czar" Kevin Jennings is the person to whom I'm referring. Big Government notes that in a previous position, executive director of GLSEN, he promoted sexual conduct by young people which was likely to cause them serious physical and mental harm. An examination of the publications by this group revealed a man shockingly unsuitable for a federal schools position:

We were unprepared for what we encountered. Book after book after book contained stories and anecdotes that weren't merely X-rated and pornographic, but which featured explicit descriptions of sex acts between pre-schoolers; stories that seemed to promote and recommend child-adult sexual relationships; stories of public masturbation, anal sex in restrooms, affairs between students and teachers, five-year-olds playing sex games, semen flying through the air. One memoir even praised becoming a prostitute as a way to increase one's self-esteem. Above all, the books seemed to have less to do with promoting tolerance than with an unabashed attempt to indoctrinate students into a hyper-sexualized worldview.[snip]

The material (here and here) is shocking and repulsive. The fact that Kevin Jennings' organization GLSEN was promoting these books to children is very disturbing.

On Saturday, it was discovered that Kevin Jennings' organization GLSEN sponsored a youth conference at Tuft's University in March 2000. This conference was fully supported by the Massachusetts Department of Education, the Safe Schools Program, the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, and some of the presenters even received federal money. An undercover journalist with Mass Resistance was at the conference and recorded a couple of the workshops. During one of the conference workshops an activist asks 14 year-old students, "Spit or swallow?... Is it rude?" This audio clip segment is also posted here.

That's not all. The conference also included a workshop where GLSEN activists promoted "fisting" to 14 year olds. [/quote]

Are the marketers more sensitive to public reaction than is Congress?

Are reporters so certain that the public is interested in every detail of Tiger's misdeeds and totally disinterested in the Jennings story ? If not why has one story received so much coverage and the other virtually none?

Are American parents more concerned about their kids drinking Gatorade promoted by a serial adulterer than they are about a school czar who headed an outfit that promoted to children pedophilia, toddler sex games, prostitution, fisting and anal sex in restrooms?

Or, is it possible that the press, as it once did with Woods, is continuing to cover for Jennings (and his boss, the President) so that parents are unaware of the situation and would demand action-Jennings removal from political office-- if they did know.

These days it seems one has a far more educated choice as a consumer of sports drinks than one does as a tax paying parent.