We need the Navy Seals to take down the bin Laden of Burgers

Some 550 leading health care professionals and organizations have signed their names to a  full-page advertisement running today in six national newspapers. It's a call to action pleading with McDonald's to stop its sleazy, subversive marketing to kids and to retire their damnable corporate icon, Ronald McDonald.

Fuggedaboutit! The ad won't work because McDonald's won't stop marketing to kids. They can't. The impact on future sales would be too horrible to contemplate. (Could you imagine life without plus-sized families wolfing down Big Macs five times a week? How positively un-American.)

Instead, America's health groups should get serious, mobilize their monies, marshal their troops, and declare war on McDonald's. And, public enemy number one of what I'm calling 'Operation: Waistline' should be Ronald McDonald himself.

In my mind, Ronald's the bin Laden of Burgers, the Pol Pot of Poor Diets and the Hitler of Healthy Living.

And, I'd engage the same elite Seal 6 team that took out bin Laden in his Abbottabad compound for this surgical strike. Why not? They've got a proven plan and are ready to roll.

I'd have the Seals initiate a midnight raid on Mickey D's Oakbrook, Illinois, headquarters. I'll bet they'd catch Ronald watching the tube (hopefully nothing worse than PG-13 content). I picture him lying in bed, wearing just his red overalls. He'll have an arm draped around one or more of his morbidly obese wives while puffing on a cigarette and scarfing down some fries and a chocolate shake.

As was the case with bin Laden, I'd tell the Seals to take him down ASAP. Who knows what a cornered corporate icon might do in a moment of desperation? Waste him. Plus, no one wants Ronald McDonald alive and put on trial. The guy's a real charmer and that red and yellow costume might just sway a jurist or two. No, I'd tell the Seals to put one bullet just above Ronald's eye.

Then, let's bury him in an undisclosed location in Lake Michigan. We don't want McDonald's fanatics making a shrine out of Ronald's final resting spot.

The Mob likes to say if you 'cut off the head, the body will die.' I think health care professionals need to adopt the same strategy with McDonald's. Whack Ronald and watch our nation's obesity epidemic (and waistlines) slowly, but surely, contract.

One caveat to the Seals, though. Do yourselves a public relations favor and don't adopt an American Indian code word such as Geronimo for Ronald. There's no need to undermine the results by alienating an important minority.

So, let's get to work. Let's infiltrate Ronald's inner circle, use some advanced terror techniques to determine his daily habits, get some spy satellites to focus their cameras on his compound and get this deed done. If Obama doesn't want to issue the final execute command, I will.

Ronald McDonald must die if America is to live. It's go time!!!!

Comments

[PRCarl]

This guy has just eaten his 25,000th Big Mac: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13437838

They had a ceremony in his honour at his local McDonald’s. I guess this makes him like a bin Laden courier who would get caught up in the firefight.

[Lunch_boy]

PRCarl beat me to the punch. The Big Mac eater is 6'2, 180 lbs and has great cholesterol and other vitals, or so I have heard (Maybe Ronald’s personal publicist is pitching that story?).

I am smart enough to realize that he is an anomaly, not the norm. But still…

[RepMan]

Wow. Just imagine the damage wreaked by ingesting 25,000 MacDonald's over a lifetime. That dude's created his own internal Jihad. To your point, PRCarl, I see him as a McDonald's operative or perhaps a member of one of Ronald's numerous Sleeper Cells. If he can lead the Seals to Ronald's actual compound, though, I say we waterboard the fast food freak ASAP.

[Lunch_boy]

13.5 million calories in 25,000 Big Macs.

[RepMan]

Wow. Talk about biggest loser material. Mickey D should spend its marketing dollars educating this nut job rather than honoring him. Shame on McDonald's. I've giving the Seal 6 team a green light to take out Ronald.

[RepMan]

He may be 6' 2" and 180 pounds on the outside, but I'll bet he has the cardiovascular system of a 5' 1", 600-pound guy on the inside.

[fairmack]

This just in on the internet:

According to prophecy author Dave MacPherson, the Obamas feel that at least Ronald McDonald's red hair is politically correct because Ronald knows how to cut the catsup more than he knows how to cut the mustard!

[JulieFarin]

I disagree with you entirely, RepMan. McDonald's, like any American corporation, is looking to increase its profits through strategic marketing. Ronald McDonald is no different than Tony the Tiger, the Keebler Elves, the Fruit Loops toucans, the Lucky Charms' leprauchans, etc.

I agree that the fast "food" that McDonald's offers is unhealthy. But it is MY choice not to eat there; same as it is MY choice not to smoke or engage in other unhealthy activities.

I think the best way to get people stop eating this crap is to educate parents on nutrition so they will take more responsibility for what their children eat.

[RepMan]

I see a striking resemblance between Ronald McDonald and bin Laden, especially since Ronald's taken to living in the hills surrounding Oakbrook, Illinois. On a somewhat more serious note, Julie, I totally disagree with you and see Ronald as a latter-day Joe Camel (who, for Millennial readers, was a cool-looking cartoon character the cigarette smoker used to entice kids to light-up). Ronald's clownish outfit was designed with one purpose in mind Julie: to get little kids to equate overdosing on empty calories with fun. To me that's a different form of terrorism that nonetheless requires the skills of the Seals 6 team to end it.

[JoshCBrown]

Here's the thing though, Ronald McDonald is marketed towards young children, between the ages of 5 and 10. Personally I believe the responsibility lies with the parents to control their children's caloric intake.

While fast food is admittedly deplorable, last I checked, the consumption of such food is not yet illegal. McDonald's has been marketing to children for decades and while yes, we're an incredibly obese society, you can't just blame McDonald's for that, as some people found the will power to only eat 25 Big Macs in their entire lifetime rather than 25,000.

Fast food as a whole is marketed to the entire lazy American population. Whether it's Taco Bell marketing to that teenager who just needs a "fourth meal" after puffing a little of the Mary Jane. Or Sonic marketing to people who just never want to leave their car and don't have to worry about fitting into one of those pesky booths inside a restaurant when they can just sit in their car.

If you want to attack Ronald McDonald, go after sweet little Wendy, The Colonel, and the King too. But maybe, just maybe, parents should stop blaming everyone else for their fat kids.

[RepMan]

There's plenty of blame to go around, JoshCBrown. I agree parents are a big part of the problem. But, Ronald is THE icon of THE most successful fast food chain in history. If not taken down by a bin Laden type hit, then Ronald should at least stand trial for his (obesity) crimes against humanity. Ronald turns on little kids to a lifetime addiction to Big Macs. And, I see the Big Mac as THE gateway drug to obesity.