Our friend Todd Starnes brings this to our attention.
Lennie Jarratt’s children had gone to Walmart over the weekend in search of a gradation card for a family friend. But instead they found a Hallmark card that has generated outrage within the Tea Party community – along with calls for a national boycott.
The card, published by Hallmark, features an image of President Obama on the cover declaring, “You graduated! Time to go to a lot of parties!”
The inside of the card reads, “But avoid those tea parties if you can. Trust me.”
“It’s offensive,” said Jarratt, the founder of the Lake County Tea Party in Illinois. “Why is Hallmark getting political? What’s the point of this? Why would they want to bash a whole group of people?”
Jarratt said his children returned home from the store and told him about the card – so he decided to go to the store and purchase a copy of the card.
“My kids didn’t like it because it was bashing tea parties,” he said. “I got the same reaction.”
Read more over at Todd’s blog.
Well, I will never by a Hallmark product again. There is no excuse for this.
those lib freaks can’t keep their hands off anything! No Mo Hallmark for me:)
OK, I have to admit I’m approaching this differently from those wanting to automatically trigger a boycott. First of all I’m curious if there were cards available that politically could be considered conservative? What is the history of Hallmark with cards depicting Presidents and political figures? If they have been exclusively Leftist, then I might consider a boycott but if they’ve poked fun at both sides, not so much.
And the card itself is actually pretty lame and tame and in general just stupid but not particularly offensive. I’m curious how many sold. A great aspect about us TAMs and many in the Tea Party in general is our ability to laugh at ourselves and human foibles and not be such, um… Debbie Downers or oppressed Massachusetts Cherokees.
Just my $2, aka $0.02 in the devalued DB economy.
What else can he say? : “Congratulations on your indoctrination – uh – you can buy beer and cigarettes with your food stamps. Pot is better though, trust me.”
[…] for Israel’s Bonus Extra: Courtesy of Tammy Bruce, I heard that one of the Muslim Brotherhood “Foreign Relations” heads refused to answer […]
Hallmark sold cards that bashed Bush until Jan 2011.
A search for “Obama” on the Hallmark site brought up one probama card, one card critical of Obama and one neutral.
http://www.hallmark.com/Browse/Index?n=&ctx=ContentSearchProfile&pg=1&rpp=&sort=&k=obama&npath=&availableLocation=
A search for “tea party” brings up this:
http://www.hallmark.com/Browse/Index?n=&ctx=ContentSearchProfile&pg=1&rpp=&sort=&k=tea%20party&npath=&availableLocation=
Neither search brought up the card in question. So what else is Hallmark hiding??
Wow. Thank you Tammy for reading my comment in the Daily TAM briefing and giving me a lot to think about. While I’m still doing no more than rolling my eyes at the card, I did want to play devil’s advocate and get input from you and others. What I have decided to do is send an e-mail to Hallmark and see if they come back with an acceptable response. I’ll keep you posted.
btw – anyway else interested in sending a message can go to the main hallmark.com website and then go all the way to the bottom center of the page and click Contact Us.
Here is my message to Hallmark (the canned replay screen stated they respond in two business days):
For countless occasions over the past decades, I’ve turned to Hallmark to find the right cute or sincere card to convey the message I wanted to friends and loved ones. However, I’ve heard about a card you offered in an Illinois store that I found troubling. From an article:
The card, published by Hallmark, features an image of President Obama on the cover declaring, “You graduated! Time to go to a lot of parties!”
The inside of the card reads, “But avoid those tea parties if you can. Trust me.”
First of all, the card is kind of lame and not up to your normal standards. Two, it perpetuates a very untrue and unfair characterization of American taxpayers like me who are finding support and a meaningful message in Tea Party. I wanted to make you aware that Tea Party comprises more of your market than those who authorized that card may realize.
Can you let me know if you are offering cards of a political nature that cover the whole range of ideologies? If so, I could stomach this card a bit better. If not, I hope you think twice before issuing items of such a partisan nature. I don’t want to have to seek other card manufacturers and cause inconvenience to both of us.
If this is card is a big seller, then you certainly have a right as an American company to realize the profits. But regardless of sales, I hope you consider the views and feelings of customers and market segment like myself and the Illinois family who discovered this card.
I look forward to an explanation.
Thank you.
Here is my reply from Hallmark when I sent them an email expressing my displeasure:
Response Via Email(Sabrina) – 06/25/2012 10:56 AM Thank you for contacting Hallmark.
We’re sorry to learn that a card that was intended to be a playful way for someone to acknowledge a graduate’s accomplishments has been interpreted as a political statement. That was certainly not the intent, and in no way reflects the view of our company. We appreciate your feedback and please know that we will pass your comments on to the humor team.
For additional information on our humor cards, please visit our Newsroom at http://newsroom.hallmark.com/Viewpoints/Humor-at-Hallmark.
We appreciate your taking the time to let us know your feelings.
Thanks,
Hallmark Consumer Care
http://www.Hallmark.com
Auto-Response – 06/23/2012 11:44 AM
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I can see they’re real worried. Well, no cards, no TV shows and no giftwrap for me, no more!
Humor team? Oo-Kay! Love that they have a whole team “handling” the humor and that’s what they come up with. At least they acknowledged this but kind of a tepid response.
I guess they borrowed Letterman’s “Humor Team” for that card.
I have just bought my last Hallmark card! Did you tweet this, Tammy?
I will now always buy American Greetings instead of Hallmark. I do remember previous political cards over the last 10 years, but they all were directed toward the politicians, not the people. Seeing Hallmark’s flat response gets me riled more than the card.
Disgusting. Okay, I’ll try to give the ‘humor team’ a break here. I’m sure that they wanted a card featuring the President speaking to graduates. But they couldn’t make fun of the President because then they would be called racist. So how do make a humor card with the President but not have him be the focus of the joke. Bash Republicans, naw too political. Bash an individual, naw too personal. Make a joke about partying, yeh that’s the ticket.
So, yes it is bad. But I think part of this mistake is the liberals/Democrats who yell RACIST, so Hallmark was scared to make fun of the President. I’d encourage Hallmark to make fun of the President. Maybe something like; Congratulations Graduates. Time to party. But don’t go to Cancun next week, because I’ll be there. And never let anyone see your grades. Bottoms up!
Would like research on any graduation cards with Bush. I will also think twice now before purchasing Hallmark.