Prime-Time Atheists

Lemme guess. You were watching the Nats lock down a spot in the World Series and missed the Democratic debate on CNN Tuesday night.

Wondering what you missed? I’m here to help. I watched as much as I could stand.

Let’s see, some of the Dem hopefuls want to take your guns, others want to take away your private health insurance and your right not to belong to a union. They want abortion, abortion and more abortions, of course. They want to raise taxes and punish the successful. The party that used to rail about endless wars now wants to stay in them. Or at least, they don’t want to get out of the Middle East if Trump is the one leading the retreat.

In other words, no surprises.

Except this:

Yep, it’s the smug son of the late President Ronald Reagan, right smack in the middle of CNN’s Democratic debate, sneering at people of faith and fundraising for The Freedom From Religion Foundation, an organization of “proud” atheists and agnostics.

I did a little digging and learned that this Reagan ad was actually filmed in 2014. The atheists had a devilish time getting it on the air, however. It wasn’t until 2017 that it was first broadcast.

In fact, according to the FFRF website, ABC rejected the Reagan spot last month when that network hosted a Democratic debate:

Two TV commercials produced by the Freedom From Religion Foundation have been rejected for airing by ABC during the Democratic debate taking place in Houston on Thursday, Sept. 12.

FFRF first tried to purchase time from ABC to run its iconic TV spot featuring Ron Reagan endorsing FFRF and describing himself as “an unabashed atheist . . . not afraid of burning in hell.”

Major networks have refused to run the 30-second spot since it was produced in 2014, including ABC, NBC, CBS and even Science Discovery. (MSNBC, Comedy Central and CNN have run the ad, and it’s airing this week and next on “The Daily Show.”)

ABC has standards. Who knew? (Then again, they may have been terrified of a Christian backlash.)

CNN had no such qualms, though.

It’s a jarring ad, for believers, anyway. And the choice of the 61-year-old son of Ronald Reagan as a spokesman for this group, is curious. To his credit, Reagan has mastered the dripping-with-condescension attitude after many decades of practice.

When I asked my politically engaged millennial daughter what she thought of the spot, that she screwed up her face and asked who Ron Reagan was, saying she wondered if he might be related to the late president.

Guess she wasn’t one of the millions of people Googling his name during the debate in an attempt to learn the identity of this odd-looking man.

If the Freedom From Religion outfit was hoping to win support from the audience by using the son of the father of modern conservatism, it may have been lost on the younger generation that have no memory of the ballet dancing son and his hippie sister who took every opportunity to embarrass their dad when he was in the White House.

But, hey, give this godless group credit. They know where to find new members.

You think they’re going to run this ad during the Country Music Awards?