Write your own caption
This is the illustration accompanying the Willamette Week’s endorsement of Obama:
The editors are careful to note that Obama “is not divine.” But he does walk on water and is accompanied everywhere by white horses and cascading rose petals.
UPDATE: Like any lazy writer, I can’t resist the opportunity to use a picture to make a point that it would normally take me about 2000 words to argue. So I’m uploading this picture for comparison:
Obamamania gives liberals the opportunity to surrender to the same mindless hero-worship as Republicans. That’s really the deal. George W. Bush is, in actuality, a creep. A vicious little man. But he was marketed as a Man of Honor, a Man of God — and people fell for it. Because they wanted to, because they were ripe for that kind of pseudo-religious surrender.
Barack Obama is not a creep or a vicious little man. He is, however, a canny politician, and not even a particularly honest one. He’s a product of the Chicago machine, and he’s played as dirty as anybody. His whole career, going back to the moment he graduated from Harvard Law, has been focused on one thing: his own advancement. The elaborate advertising campaign that’s selling him to the gullible masses as some kind of savior is just that — an advertising campaign.
We are a nation of consumers, of believers, of dupes. Maybe we don’t deserve democracy anymore.
38 Responses to “Write your own caption”
-
No Blood for Hubris says:
No-ooooo.
No, that’s not true. They didn’t run that picture. Tell me that it’s snark. Puh-leeese.
May 11th, 2008 at 4:36 pm EST -
Lavender Liberal says:
I think I’m going to vomit.
Is that for real?
One thing’s for sure: Now I see Barry as the Obamanoids see him: As young as they are (the artist has lopped 25 years off the real Saint Barry), and with the complete makeover they wish they could afford. (Did Barry ever have pecs like that? And just look at that chin implant!)
It reminds me of the pictures in my old Children’s Bible. Scary.
-
Violet says:
My favorite part is the horse. The horse kills me.
-
Mary Tracy9 says:
He’s pointing at his dick! It HAS to be on purpose.
-
Buffy says:
It’s a good thing I haven’t had anything to eat yet or I’d be hurling it all over the keyboard. WTF is in that Kool-aid? Am I immune because I am an atheist (and what makes some otherwise skeptical/atheist individuals fall prey)? Aye carammba what are we in for if this fraud gets elected?
-
PJ says:
If it is meant to be humorous it is. If it is meant to be real it’s scary. Are we electing a president or the next American Idol? This guy has no experience!!!
-
Paula Schramm says:
WTF?WTF?WTF?WTF?WTF?
Sorry that I’m repeating myself, but what is wrong with the United States that a journalistic publication would actually print a picture like that. In earnest!
-
gkruz says:
Ok, I give up. Is he supposed to be Jesus, Elvis or the Lone Ranger?
-
reader says:
yeesh.
-
PJ says:
What’s next, Michele as Mother Theresa? Christ on a cracker!!!!!! And what is with the horse?
-
Violet says:
I would say it’s the Unity Pony, but that’s no pony.
The horse is genius.
-
Violet says:
By the way, can anybody tell me what’s in his right hand? It looks like something with a “B” on it.
-
slythwolf says:
A year or so ago there was a meme going around LiveJournal where you went to the Candybar Dollmaker and made Mary Sue versions of yourself. (For those not involved in the fan fiction community, a Mary Sue is an impossibly perfect character who is universally loved and has highly unrealistic superpowers.) The picture at the top of this post looks exactly like the kind of thing I made for this meme. Here’s the post I made for the meme, just for comparison purposes.
-
Shane says:
When did Obama become Fabio?
-
sister of ye says:
Yep, definitely a cross between a religious illustration and the cover of a bodice-ripper.
Violet, I must quibble on one point. I’d definitely categorize Obama as a creep. To cite two (of many) reasons: 1) the flip off/brush off/poop on shoe speech; and (more seriously) 2) playing cozy with a slum lord who was letting his tenants (Obama’s constituents) freeze.
-
Andrea Dworkin says:
For the past 3 decades the more charismatic and better looking candidate has been elected President. The last balding person to be elected president was Eisenhower. Then came tv.
-
Nan says:
I thought at first that was a unicorn peeking out from behind him. It’s definitely a bad cover for a bodice ripper. Absolutely unreal.
-
zuzu says:
Please tell me that’s some kind of parody of the worshipfulness.
Because otherwise, it looks like it should be on black velvet or airbrushed on the side of a van.
-
dfler says:
Violet,
that thing in his hand looks like a McDonald’s coupon to me.
-
Melissa says:
Somebody needs to tell the Obots that horses, on average, create fifty pounds of manure every day. Who is gonna shovel all that s**t? Not Barry!
Oh, and I disagree, he is a first degree, card carrying, mysoginist, racist creep.
And what is that in his hand??? The O version of the Ten Commandments? A candy bar? -
sas says:
That picture made me laugh out loud - it is so ridiculous!
No one can really take that seriously, can they?
What I mean is, if you do take it seriously, you realize how deranged his supporters are, if they really see him this way.
The sun coming through the clouds, the unity pony, the bridge - just too funny. And he looks so innicent and pure…just too too funny.
Gotta be a parody….no?
-
blondie says:
I thought the picture was mocking him, but it’s supposed to be supportive of him? Huh. It reminds me of the illustrations in literature some (unnamed denomination, but, in my opinion, kooky) missionaries left at my door.
He’s in rose colored water (boat? island? walking like Jesus?), and roses are floating about him. Did someone throw them at him, or are they drawn by his floral magnetism? There’s a white horse, not a unicorn or pegasus, but with the superpower of being able to run on water, looking lovingly toward him. Is that the Unity Pony? What he has in his hand is monogrammed, but I cannot tell if it is supposed to be a belt buckle (no belt) or a remote control, cell phone, or transporting/walkie talkie/thingamajig from Star Trek. What else does a person hold like that? Sunrays are breaking through the clouds to magnify his holy light (no halo?), and there may be sequins or beads of moisture on him. His adams apple and chin are enhanced, his ears the opposite. But why is his shirt open? Is he also wearing white pants? Like a karate outfit, with a collar, and no belt? I’ve never seen him dressed so casually. And his left thumb may be melting.
-
AnninCA says:
The picture is so telling of the type of sentiment that propelled Obama in this race. Amazing to me that so many people were obviously looking for some type of spiritual leader and turned to a politician. As he moves into the GE, those same people are going to be so very disappointed, because he’s not going to even nod at the blogging world who continually bashed Hillary, he’ll dump the activists in the AA community, who gave him a start, and he’ll cozy right up to the Washington insider corps.
The only thing they were ever interested in was making sure that they got the power, not the Clintons.
-
atheist woman says:
Mmm, sexxxay. Is he trying to look like Elvis in the that one piece? I prefer brushed velvet thanks, right next to the barka lounger. That should be his new slogan. Roses shall sprout at my feet.
-
atheist woman says:
Wait, I’m sorry Melissa, in what way is that man racist?
-
Cyn says:
Wait - that thing in His hand doesn’t have a B on it. Turn it sideways and it’s the MacDonald’s golden arches! I think He’s carrying Apple Pie.
-
fuzzyblue says:
You know, if you look closely at the area above the horse’s head, there’s a faint upright line. It just might be a unicorn after all. (Maybe it’s a *secret* unicorn.)
-
ekittyglendower says:
He is holding a blackberry, or maybe an i-phone, whatever the kewl boyz all have.
-
Violet says:
fuzzyblue, you’re right! Maybe it is a unicorn. A unicorn would make more sense. It means Obama is a virgin.
-
richard niemann says:
Received my first piece of Omaba campaign mail today. Since I do not support his cause, I wrote on the envelope “unwanted mail, return to sender.
Suggest anyone else not supporting Mr. Obama do the same.
richard in Florida
-
julia says:
Now you all know about the embaressing, juvenile, ‘we hate women unless they’re sluts’ Willamette Week from Portland, Oregon. The most green-talking, white, young, hip, sexist and racist city on the West Coast.
Glad I’m back in Eugene….. -
sis says:
a river
a white horse
a bridge
roses
and uh did he walk across that river?Joseph Campbell gonna spin.
-
Pony says:
Naw it’s not a unicorn. The unicorn’s corn comes out of its mid to lower forehead, not behind its mane. Sheesh.
It’s my cousin Rob.
-
jawbone says:
In his right hand, is it a cell phone with a monogrammed cell phone cover? Held upside down, but would read “BHO” — there seems to be straight line next to the backwards B.
How “cool” would that be?
Now I need to go barf.
-
jawbone says:
Yeah, the left thumb has something really weird going on, either early signs of arthritis (rheumatoid at his age?) or, as someone above noted, he’s beginning to melt.
I think it might be the latter. He’s a waxworks automata, playing his role in a planned takeover of the Democratic Party. He has been scripted, and Axelrod showed how it’s done in MA. However, in MA, they forgot to take over the levers of power, and their candidate got into office with little ability to work with the existing power structure.
If the meltdown continues, Obama may not become the nominee of the party, but as of now it’s only a smallish error or breakdown, easily explained away.
So who is (or are) the Drosselmeyer and/or Coppelius, the makers of the lifesize mechanical figure? Who, in the go round, are trying to take over the levers of power along with installing their puppet?
-
Shane says:
Yeah, and these depictions of Obama-as-religious-savior aren’t being matched by the campaign at all.
http://www.correntewire.com/wh.....ligion_now
I wish I was making that up.
-
Susan Mayhew says:
I’m just exhausted by the con … all i can think is that his followers are kids or people who missed joining a commune in the 70’s
He doesn’t get my vote even if he has a bunch a third rate ‘artist’ trying to convey that he’s jesus… read RL’ brilliant explanation of the Christian outreach phenomenon… it explains everything. -
lorelynn says:
It’s like Thomas Kinkaide for black people. I bet he’s walkin’ towards a cottage.
