Introduction to Constitutional Law

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"Tim Tebow's Ad Has Left Tangled in Their Knickers" -

The theme in this year's Super Bowl ads was going to be people in their underwear.

Three companies were touting their Super ads to USA Today, talking about how showing people wearing only their skivvies in inappropriate settings is the next big thing.

Renee White Fraser, an "advertising psychologist," extolled the move as a "provocative -- but safe -- way to get viewer attention."

"People love to imagine other people in their underwear," Fraser told the paper.

She must not have taken a bus lately. It's ugly out there, lady.

Fraser is actually the chief executive officer of an L.A. advertising agency who has a degree in consumer psychology. But I suppose part of her job is therapeutic -- she helps clients rationalize the abuse of good taste in the name of profits.

While the gross-out ads from Dockers, Bud Light and CareerBuilder.com will break some meaningless boundaries by bringing "Old School"-style humor ("We're streaking!") to Family Hour television, the real Super Bowl controversy is over the ad starring former University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow.

Focus on the Family, the Colorado-based Christian group led by James Dobson, is paying big bucks -- perhaps $3.2 million -- for a 30-second spot featuring Heisman Trophy winner Tebow and his mother, Pam.

In 1987, pregnant Pam Tebow and her husband, Bob, were in the Philippines as missionaries when she contracted dysentery. Doctors believed that the disease would result in the death of her baby and that a fruitless childbirth might kill her too.

But mother and son survived. After years of home schooling, Tim Tebow went on to become 240 pounds of All-Southeastern Conference, football-slinging whoopass with Bible verses written on his cheeks.

The point of the ad isn't to pass a bill or defeat a candidate who believes women have a right to elective abortions, but to encourage women to "choose life" when faced with desperate options.

News of the ad had a predictably Pavlovian effect on the Left. Since the spot combines many of the elements that the "educated class" most detests about America -- frank expressions of Christianity, pro-life advocacy, home-schoolers, football hero worship and the South -- they were incensed that cash-strapped CBS would take Focus on the Family's money.

Jehmu Greene, head of the Women's Media Center, is leading a drive to punish CBS for airing the ad, which she claims is "sexist."

I don't know exactly what the controversy is. In the first ad above, Paris Hilton is simply celebrating her independent womanhood. In Tebow's ad, it will be suggested that one might choose not to kill your child. The first is obviously a good thing, the second a bad thing. Everybody knows that killing babies is a good thing. Sheesh. Some people just never seem to get the memo.