I couldn’t have been more disappointed in Pat Schroeder if she’d come out and endorsed bumbling Dennis Hastert for president. But there she was, Pat Schroeder, recommending diet pills on the radio.
“When life starts passing you by … when your pants keep getting more and more snug … when the kids are begging you to get off the couch … it’s time,” a disembodied voice on the radio ad for Diet Extreme said, adding “Here’s Pat Schroeder.”
Cut to Pat: “I’ve been using the product for eight weeks and have lost 21 pounds. Diet Extreme from GNC is working for me. It can work for you.”
What next, I wondered, Pat hustling breast augmentation surgery?
Then I thought about it. The president of the Association of American Publishers, graduate of Harvard Law School, former 12-term congresswoman from Denver, distinguished member of the National Women’s Hall of Fame and icon of the feminist movement can’t be selling diet drugs.
Sure, I know, former Sen. Bob Dole sold out to Viagra.
But the first woman to serve on the House Armed Services Committee hawking diet pills? Say it isn’t so.
“It’s not me,” said Schroeder, from her office in Washington, D.C.
“I couldn’t stop laughing about me being on a commercial for a diet pill,” she said. “It’s certainly not my voice, unless they mechanically did something.”
So who is this random Pat Schroeder on the radio in Colorado?
Brad Achtermeier, owner of Beanstalk Advertising, which produced the radio spot, said she is a woman from Nebraska.
He said she has lost 28 pounds on the pills, which are described in the ad as a “safe alternative” to ephedrine, the drug that was banned after it was found to cause high blood pressure, heart problems and the occasionally fatal stroke.
Achtermeier, who pleaded ignorance – lots of it – insisted that Pat Schroeder is just another satisfied customer.
“We weren’t trying to imply any kind of Pat Schroeder from Colorado,” he said.
Just in case I was still skeptical, Achtermeier called the Pat Schroeder of diet-pill fame and asked her to contact me to endorse her endorsement.
“I work in the sales department for NGR Media, which owns two radio stations in central Nebraska,” said the woman who claimed she’d worked in radio for 25 years and had never heard of the congresswoman of the same name.
The diet-pill-endorsing Pat Schroeder is married, has seven kids, lives in Grand Island and said she doesn’t know much about what’s going on in the world.
“I really don’t pay a lot of attention to who is in Congress,” she said, admitting that she’s not sure she could tell you who represents central Nebraska.
For the record, it’s Rep. Tom Osborne, the former University of Nebraska football coach and probably the most famous Nebraskan since Johnny Carson.
But, well, never mind.
The incredible shrinking Pat Schroeder declined to say whether she’d been paid to endorse the drug, but she reiterated the pitch: “It’s a wonderful product.”
Faith Cavill, a spokeswoman for GNC corporate headquarters in Pennsylvania, did recognize the name of former Rep. Pat Schroeder, vaguely. But she insisted the only person who could comment on the ad featuring her namesake was a vice president who was in meetings all day and really busy.
So I called Kurt Belding, co-owner of the GNC store in Aurora mentioned in the diet-pill ad. He freaked.
“This has nothing to do with any congresslady,” he sputtered. “I just moved here from Nebraska a year ago, and I never heard of any congressperson named Pat Schroeder.”
Fair enough.
For all the Coloradans who voted for her and followed her brilliant career, rest assured, our Pat Schroeder is not shilling for diet-pill hucksters. The advertisers insist it’s all just a case of mistaken identity. And I actually believe these bozos.
I mean, what Coloradan would ever dispute the “I’m from Nebraska and totally clueless” defense?
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-954-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
