The Washington Times reported Friday that NBC rejected for the Super Bowl an ad from the Fidelis Center for Law & Policy's CatholicVote.com (video of the ad) showing a baby in the womb identified as Barack Obama -- which reminded me of how in January two years ago another network, CBS's Showtime cable channel, featured in one of its prime time series a mannequin “art” piece of Barbara Bush aborting George W. Bush. NewsBusters reported on January 29, 2007:

Sunday's episode of the L word, Showtime's drama series about lesbians in Los Angeles, featured the “Unauthorized Abortion of W,” a sculpture of a woman's body with an exposed womb displaying George W. Bush's adult face with each of his hands holding onto a rocket labeled “U.S. Air Force.” The rockets were angled to suggest they represent forceps. The figure was made to look just like Barbara Bush, with an American flag blindfold, and with the suction end of a vacuum cleaner just below her crotch.

(Video below.)

Washington Times reporter Julia Duin's description of the ad NBC turned down:

The ad opens with an ultrasound of a child in utero, set to violin music.

"The child's future is a broken home," the caption reads. "He will be abandoned by his father. His single mother will struggle to raise him."

As the music swells and an outline of a baby can clearly be seen, "Despite the hardships he will endure, this child will become," the voice-over says as a photo of Mr. Obama in front of a cheering crowd flashes on the screen, "the first African-American president."

As a final photo of the President appears, "Life. Imagine the Potential," the caption concludes.

My January 29, 2007 NewsBusters item recounted:

....In the January 28 episode, university chancellor “Phyllis,” played by Cybill Shepherd, warns “Bette Porter,” the dean of the university's art school played by Jennifer Beals, that big potential donor “Skip Collins,” who is coming for a visit, is quite conservative: “Conservative is a little left of where he is. He and George W. grew up playing G.I. Joes together.” So, Bette Porter asks “Jodi Lerner," an “artist-in-residence” played by Marlee Matlin, to hide anything in her sculpture studio which would upset Collins. Instead, she puts the Bush abortion sculpture in the center of the art studio. When Porter pulls her aside to complain, Lerner lectures: “My understanding was that you wanted me to capitulate to some asshole's reptilian politics to get money out of him and that I will never do.”

Lerner then announces to Collins: “This is called the 'Unauthorized Abortion of W.' Some of the most powerful student work I've seen.” Collins, seeing the sculpture with a vacuum cleaner at its base, fires back: “It's an abomination and an abuse of university funds.” Porter pleads with him: “Look Skip, don't you think, really, that the primary purpose of a university is to provide a safe haven to explore ideas and expand boundaries?” Collins: “Not on my dollar.”

After Collins storms out, Lerner urges Porter to “give him the speech about how the impressionists were met with the same response when they debuted their work in Paris in 1874.”

—Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center