Kent Bush: Captain Obvious misses opportunity to make waves

Al Gore has announced his endorsement of Barack Obama for president. And in other news, the sky is blue.

Gore waited until Hillary Clinton -- the wife of the man who chose him to be his running mate -- conceded to announce his endorsement.

Gore's insipid endorsement didn't shock or even stir voters. If his announcement would have been made in April, it could have made a difference.

But Republican candidate John McCain was so overwhelmed by the environmental activist's entry into the fray that he immediately called for the nation to withdraw all bans on offshore drilling to help America become less dependent on foreign oil.

Daisy deviser dies

The father of the attack ad died this week.

Tony Schwartz, one of the creators of the infamous 1964 Lyndon B. Johnson "Daisy" ad, died Sunday at the age of 84.

If you have never seen the ad, you can find it at http://youtube.com/watch?v=OKs-bTL-pRg.

It starts with a little girl counting the petals of a daisy in the sweetest voice ever heard. As she gets to 10, the ad transitions to the countdown to the explosion of an atomic bomb. The frame systematically zooms in on her face until only her pupil is shown. When the screen turns black, a missile is launched.

A voiceover by President Johnson said, "We must either love each other or we must die."

At the end the commercial, voters are told the stakes are too high not to vote for LBJ.

At the time, voters still expected presidential candidates to operate with some semblance of civility. The ad was pulled immediately.

But the Daisy ad planted a seed that was watered and fed by the Watergate scandal of 1972. It was the first drop in the mudslide that created an environment of "gotcha" politics and no attack ad left behind.

But Schwartz found some redemption in his use of similar techniques to help fight smoking when the link between cigarettes and lung disease were first discovered.

So when you grow tired of the candidates and the committees that support them spending all their resources telling you how bad the other guy is, remember Tony Schwartz. But also try to remember that he did a lot of good both in advertising and as an author and professor at Harvard.

He may have planted the seed, but his seed fell on fallow ground.

The reason it didn't work in 1964 was that voters recoiled. The reason it does work now is because voters don't.

Excrement by any other name.

A Chicago-area man successfully changed his name to In God We Trust this week.

He said it was a move to try to immortalize the phrase. In fact, don't his actions mortalize it?

When you get right down to it, this previously anonymous artist -- and part-time bus driver -- declared his true intentions.

"There are billions of artists out there. If you don't do something to stand out in the crowd, the world won't recognize you," said We Trust -- the former Steve Kreuscher.

As our national motto, "In God we trust" has been emblazoned on currency since the Civil War.

Now a man who wants more money uses it as his name.

Augusta Gazette