What Reebok should teach the politicians

OK, so here’s something that I don’t get at all.  Reebok’s TV commercials stated: “It’s the shoe proven to work your hamstrings and calves up to 11 percent harder and tone your butt up to 28 percent more than regular sneakers. Just by walking.”

 

Well, seems like the FTC had a little problem with that, which means that Reebok has agreed to pay $25 million to settle charges from the FTC that ads for their EasyTone and RunTone shoes were misleading.

 

Let’s fast forward to the upcoming debate season.  How many misleading claims do you think we’re going to hear as the presidential campaigns get into full swing?  It makes my head hurt just thinking about it – heck, if you’ve watched any of the recent Republican ‘debates’, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

 

Which makes me wonder – if Reebok gets slapped for misleading claims about your legs and butt, shouldn’t politicians get slapped for misleading claims about: the economy, jobs, the debt, the other guy’s record, etc. , etc., etc.???  Let’s give FactCheck.org some real teeth, and let them assess fines for half-truths, misleading statements, convenient omissions, and all-out lies.  Maybe they could be standing on the sidelines during speeches and debates and throw penalty flags when a real doosie comes out.  Who knows – maybe more people would actually watch the debates if penalties were called on-the-spot!

 

I don’t know if my butt is 28% more toned or not, but it’s nice to know that the FTC is so concerned about my butt that they’d go after Reebok.  However, it sure would be nice if someone was just as concerned about the facts and the truth when it comes to political discourse and political advertising.  If the FTC can go after Reebok for the claim in their commercial, why can’t (or won’t) they go after politicians who run equally misleading ads on TV???

 

Sadly, we may be more concerned about the truth when it comes to our butts than we are about truth in politics.

~ by chuckmattina on October 5, 2011.