essaysfromtheedge

Jokers Wild

Have you seen this picture?



According to news reports it began showing up on streets and highways in Los Angeles over the past weekend. Since then it has made appearances in other cities in other states.

Well, in LA the poster is causing "quite a stir." Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable President Earl Ofari Hutchinson went to far as to say, "Depicting the president as demonic and a socialist goes beyond political spoofery. It is mean-spirited and dangerous."

At the time of his weekend statement Hutchinson was evidently unaware of this image, which appeared in the July 29, 2008 issue of Vanity Fair:



Yes, it's George W. Bush. And yes, it's the same Heath Ledger Joker character. Read the comments after the brief Vanity Fair article.

One of Earl's friends must have tapped him on the shoulder... "ah, Earl..." because now Hutchinson is trying to spin himself out of the hole he dug with commentary posted today in The Huffington Post. He claims that, contrary to his comments from the weekend, he supports free speech and decries censorship; he even makes mention of the Bush Joker picture (something of a mea culpa, but obviously insincere) in a vain attempt to paint himself as a anything but an Obama boot-licking hysteric.

Part of his strategy in the Huffington piece is to downplay his weekend screed by comparing it to his own over-wrought depiction of the Right's response.

...when this writer and a handful of other critics had the temerity to brand the Obama Joker poster as a demonic and mean spirited slur of President Obama, the Obama loathers went into a manic tail spin.

Of course nothing could be further from the truth. Once again the Left is caught making vitriolic statements about those who have the "temerity" to depict their leader with such a "vile" characterization, yet condoning through their silence the exact same image used against their political opponent, George Bush.

The American people aren't stupid, and they can certainly see through this charade, which in part explains why more and more people are fed up with the Left in America and are starting to stand up and be heard.

Hutchinson repeats in his Huffington op-ed the same demand he made this past weekend:

"We have issued a public challenge to the person or group that put up the poster to come forth and publicly tell why they have used this offensive depiction to ridicule President Obama."

The man obviously needs another tap on the shoulder. Not only is the Obama poster itself publicly available from zazzle.com, you can also get t-shirts, coffee mugs, hats, mouse pads, and bumper stickers with the same image!

Isn't America great?



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posted by Tomás @ 8/05/2009 08:07:00 PM