We must either love each other…or we must die. Simple enough, right? All you need to do is juxtapose this line with a pretty white girl and a nuclear explosion, and you’ve got yourself classic negative advertising.
When Lyndon Johnson used this ad back in 1964 he was hoping he could shape the political dialogue into something like this:
"You're going to vote for Goldwater."
"Yeah. I think I am."
"You realize if he gets elected every little white girl everywhere is going to die in a horrific nuclear explosion."
"Oh. Really? What was I thinking?"
Guess what? Even though this ad was only aired once it worked. Look at the results!
Let's fast-forward to the present day, and look at a fantastic spot--sans nuclear explosion-- from the Republican National Committee. In their infinite wisdom they have decided to meld what is perhaps the best political ad ever with superficial snippets that pertain to Barack Obama's Gitmo policy.
This is all part of the Republican Party's strategy to completely undermine the president on this issue. Their hope is to have the dialogue go something like this:
"You want to release political prisoners from Guantanamo Bay?"
"Yeah. I think I do."
"Well don't you know by doing that terrorists will roam free throughout the United States randomly killing little white girls?"
"Oh. Really? What was I thinking?"
We all know the terrorists held in Guantanamo Bay are the worst of the worst. If they were to be held in prisons on mainland American soil, every little white girl everywhere would be at risk. How can we be expected to hold these men in American prisons? These are impoverished foot soldiers from Afghanistan! They are obviously a much greater threat than your run-of-the-mill rapists, serial killers, men with the last name Peterson, and all other second-rate scum we currently hold in our prisons.
Furthermore, there are those out there who claim that Guantanamo Bay is a symbol for every American foreign policy blunder of the past eight years. This statement is obviously flawed. There were no foreign policy blunders in the past eight years, and Gitmo, if anything, is a symbol for a bright new American century.
By helping to keep Guantanamo Bay functioning, the Republican Party is sincerely helping the American people. Their point must be made clear. If we don't illegally detain these terrorists in Cuba, where will we? In our backyard? NO WAY! The last thing our children need to see is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed being waterboarded on their seesaw.
Artist's Rendering
This is what our fancy mustard-eating "compatriots" would want us to have. Since we have started to detain terrorists at Guantanamo Bay there have been no terrorist attacks on American soil. If treating terrorists in inhuman ways was harmful to us as Americans, don't you think we would know it by now? Nothing bad has happened. Therefore, we've done nothing bad.
It's important to hearken back to the original "Daisy Girl" ad. We must love each other, or we must die. That doesn't mean we have to love everyone. Just ourselves.
