Sorry, this is sick.

But heaven forbid they should every see their child playing with a toy gun! Or—GASP—think about becoming a soldier!

The Family-Friendly Easter Bomb Hunt

It used to be that an Easter egg hunt was just an Easter egg hunt. It had no message beyond cute kids playing with colored eggs. Now the venerable White House Easter Egg Roll, which dates to the 1870s, has become an occasion for at least two groups to make a statement that is as much about politics as it is about the spring holiday.

Those were the good old days! Just when did they change?

"Obviously, we're trying to spoof a little bit what will be happening on the South Lawn," said Brian Hennessey of the Vineeta Foundation, a local human rights group founded in 1995 that is the lead sponsor of the cluster-bomb hunt. "We're not trying to hit kids over the head with this; we want them to have fun. We also want to bring attention to the fact that our munitions cause a lot of death and destruction to civilians, especially children."

But you don’t want to “hit kids over the head with this”? Really?

Last year, gay and lesbian parents were in the media spotlight, when a group of about 100 families donned rainbow-colored leis and waited in the overnight line for egg roll tickets. Their goal was visibility. "Our families just want to participate in a great American tradition," said Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of the Family Pride Coalition, the group that led the effort.

At least this group only wanted “visibility.” I’ve no problem with their participation. It’s the preachin’ I’ve got a problem with.

She said she understands why the White House event attracts groups with agendas to promote. "I think the fact of the matter is, politics has gotten infused into a lot of parts of American lives," she said.

Yeah and it’s a damn shame.

"This is a White House that has been fairly unresponsive to the sentiments of its people, and I'm not surprised that folks are going to great lengths to get the president's attention."

Tell you what, let’s see what happens if your sentiments are put up to a general referendum instead of court shopping. Then we’ll see if the White House is “unresponsive to the sentiments of its people.” Okay?

Back to the cluster bomb hunt:

He said he has read a few comments from people wondering if it is right to expose children to thoughts of bombings and death when all they are after is a pleasant holiday experience. "I think a more important question is whether we should be exposing other people's children to these bombs," he said.

What about all those Palestinian kids paraded about with toy guns and suicide bomb jackets? Got anything to say about that practice? No? (And if you want a positive experience in exposing the kids to death, try the Easter Sunday sermon. Much more positive that the stuff you're peddling.)

The event […] will include a search for weapons of mass destruction for the adults. "They'll all come back looking confused five minutes later, saying they couldn't find anything," Hennessey said.

Isn’t that clever! Do they get to search in Syria, too? Or dig up the entire park?

Another search, for Osama bin Laden, will turn up only photographs of Saddam Hussein, he said. A hulk of a large bomb will be filled with toy bombs, and a prize will be given to whoever guesses the number inside.

Are they going to get copies of the dozen or so UN resolutions Saddam thumbed his nose at? Why not have a large photo of the Kurds Hussein gassed and have people guess the number of bodies?

At a "teach-in" yesterday at a Northwest Washington community center, Hennessey and others helped the children fashion the fake bombs, using balloons, tennis balls and brightly colored clay. The adults told the children they could write their names on the "bombs" and take them home after Monday's event. And they tried to explain what the concerns were all about.

Goodness, won’t that make a conversation piece!

h/t: Michelle Malkin