Banzhaf: I Think I Put It Best
My favorite John Banzhaf press release of the last few hours carries the headline "Ronald McDonald Compared to Joe Camel." The anti-smoking activist turned anti-fat crusader, whose love of litigation comes second only to his love of seeing his name in print (I know--I'm just encouraging him), reports that "using Ronald McDonald in a new campaign as a 'Health Ambassador' and 'Active Lifestyles Advocate' to teach children that an active lifestyle, rather than cutting down on overeating and fattening foods, is the key to avoiding obesity has been compared in the Financial Times with using Joe Camel to teach children how to inhale less deeply to avoid lung cancer while smoking." See if you can guess which clever wag, identified in the press release only as "a critic," drew this insightful comparison in the Financial Times. Needless to say, Banzhaf did not acknowledge his rhetorical debt to Yale obesity maven Kelly Brownell, who has been comparing Ronald McDonald to Joe Camel for years.
