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02/24/2005: "OK, Swifties, I’ll Bite"

A couple of days ago I came up with a parody Swift Boat attacking those that oppose the Bush Private Lottery (AKA “Social Security Plan”). Little did I know that they’d be in business so quickly, or that their actual ad would far surpass any parody I could have invented in my wildest dreams! As all of us who follow funny public policy events likely know by now, USA Next ran an internet ad attacking AARP for its stance on Social Security. The ad briefly ran on American Spectator. It showed two pictures: one with a crossed out American soldier and the other showing two men in tuxedos kissing each other. The ad carried the slogan “the real AARP agenda.” “We are going to be revealing areas where the AARP is out of touch with a large number of their members” said USA Next CEO Charlie Jarvis. I myself have received one of those ubiquitous AARP mailings upon passing the associated life milestone, the big five-o, so I was initially puzzled over what the ad could possibly be getting at. The AARP I know about has only one passion in life, stoking geezer greed, and this organization does not dissipate any energies whatsoever on any other topic. Indeed, Nancy Thompson, a spokeswoman for AARP, said it has not taken a position on same-sex marriage. Hardly a surprise – what could it possibly have to do with the “Retired People” in the title? One might indeed argue that this particular age cohort would have more staid attitudes on the subject that just about any other. It all became clear when I read the next sentence: USA Next has hired consultants who worked for Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. It seems that in Ohio AARP opposed an amendment to the state’s Constitution that banned homosexual marriages, but only because the amendment’s second clause blocked legal recognition of any union, potentially including unmarried retired (the R word) heterosexuals, that approximated marriage rights. The ad’s assertion that AARP was opposed to American soldiers had to do with active duty soldiers by definition not being retired, so the American Association of Retied Persons has no particular position on any particular benefit for this group, just as they would not be expected to have a position on, say, stamp collecting. As soon as I saw this story I knew it was just too good to pass up, and started last night on this very entry. Then, this morning, I saw Maureen Dowd’s column on this same topic. One particularly interesting quote from Jarvis revealed that the purpose of the ad was to “provoke liberal bloggers.” I personally think of myself not so much as a liberal blogger as an “anti right wing extremism” blogger, but we don’t need to be lawyerly about what how we think of ourselves. In any case, my guess is that they’re trying to get free exposure to the ad. This may have been effective for the sliming of Kerry’s war record by other veterans, but my take is that it will backfire if they try to accuse an organization with a decidedly non-liberal public image with having attitudes of a sexual and anti-military image. For one thing, there are millions of military retirees in the AARP, so it’s hard to picture what an anti-soldier AARP would look like. However, the Swifties believe that their purposes are well served by provoking this humble humor engineer into mining some laughs by mocking their transparent heavy-handed idiocy, bring ‘em on! I for one am looking for a little payback for those obnoxious sore winner emails that floated around after the election. You know, the ones that thanked Michael Moore and Liberal Bloggers for Bush’s win. When Bush’s plan tanks, guess who’ll be thanking the Swifties!