Hoo boy. Coca-Cola ran a Super Bowl commercial featuring "America the Beautiful" being sung in English, Arabic, Spanish, and other languages, and not everyone is pleased:
- The song is "a deeply Christian patriotic anthem whose theme is unity," writes Michael Patrick Leahy for Breitbart, pointing out that the ad also featured a gay couple. "As far as the executives at Coca Cola are concerned, however, the United States of America is no longer a nation ruled by the Constitution and American traditions in which English is the language of government. It is not a nation governed in the Anglo-American tradition of liberty. It is instead a nation governed by some all inclusive multicultural synthesis of the various forms of government in the world."
- "If we cannot be proud enough as a country to sing 'American the Beautiful' in English in a commercial during the Super Bowl, by a company as American as they come—doggone we are on the road to perdition. This was a truly disturbing commercial for me," wrote former congressman Allen West on his website. (CBS reported that he called it "disgusting," not disturbing; it's not clear if he edited the post or if CBS transcribed the quote incorrectly.)
- "Coca Cola is the official soft drink of illegals crossing the border," tweeted Fox News commentator Todd Starnes.
- Indeed, Twitter lit up with discussion of the commercial, CNN reports: Laura Ingraham, for example, used the topic to criticize a GOP plan for dealing with illegal immigration ("But illegals will learn English, right @RepPaulRyan?"). But some Republicans, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski and the Heritage Foundation, tweeted support for the ad.
CNN says the commercial was, reportedly, the first time a gay family has been depicted in a Super Bowl ad. (More
Super Bowl ads stories.)
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