Jim Garaghty has a critique, with which I agree:
I actually don’t like the Obama-Joker poster, for several reasons. For starters, this image is too “hot” — i.e., the Joker was a sadist and a psychopath, and Obama is neither. Obama’s the opposite of Heath Ledger’s portrayal; the Joker was a nihilist and Obama is a utopian idealist.
There’s something particularly wrongheaded about using a character who says his purpose is to “show the schemers how pathetic their attempts to control things really are” to symbolize a politician in love with centralized planning.
As we watch the President’s poll numbers drop, I feel like a lot of damaging memes are starting to stick to Obama — used car salesman, not stupid but doesn’t know issues in depth (tonsil profiteering!), bad first instincts, a wimp on foreign affairs, melting before our eyes without Bush or McCain to run against… The “Joker” image doesn’t fit any of those, and I think is too easily used as fodder for distractions.
I think that the metaphor of Bush as Dark Knight and Islamism as the nihilist joker is interesting, but this poster is probably counterproductive, because while it may make some feel good, it isn’t grounded in a valid analogy. On the other hand:
William Ayers seemed, at one point in his life, intrigued at the thought of “watching the world burn.”
But he was “just a guy in Obama’s neighborhood” (with whom he helped propagandize schoolchildren with the Annenberg funds), so that’s all right.
[Update on Thursday morning]
Frank J. has his own take:
First off, it’s worth looking at whether the poster is racist. Liberals seem pretty certain it is. An LA Weekly blogger commented that “the only thing missing is a noose.” Now, you might be scratching your head and saying that the only people who would call this racist are brain-dead liberals who shriek “racism!” at every criticism about Obama as an alternative to thinking and only cause more problems by confusing the issue of racism and should thus be chased out of society and forced to live in the sewers, only emerging at night to feed on garbage and bugs.
And while that’s quite fair and probably true, we should still give the possibility of racism a fair hearing. Don’t you remember the long, racist history of black people being compared to the Joker? Of course not, because I just made that up — but it could be true in some alternate universe. Also, the image involves white makeup on a black person. White on black — that has to be racist somehow. I’ll bet makeup places won’t even sell white pancake makeup to black people. They’d be like “No! Get out of here, black person! We won’t sell that to you! That’s racist!”
Beyond the racism in the image that’s quite obvious to crazy people, the other question is whether there are any real substantive comparisons between Obama and the Joker. On the surface, they don’t seem at all alike. The Joker is psychotic, and I’ve heard Obama called a lot of things — arrogant, incompetent, deceitful, a Communist — but not psychotic. Obama doesn’t seem like he’s out to kill anyone — not even terrorists — and only leaves the option of killing people on the table to help make ends meet in his health care plan.
Especially terrorists.
Though he doesn’t seem averse to persuading Granny that it’s time to go.
And then there’s comment number two:
The similarities also include the circumstances that brought each to power. As Alfred said “and in their desperation, they turned to a man they fully didn’t understand.”
And the election of Obama is a joke, a bad one on us.
It’s sure not seeming all that funny to me.
Well, I can see the National Topsider’s point, Obama IS a Harvard man, after all. No need to get all conceptually inaccurate with the protest symbology, is there? Besides, what’s a little
rape of the middle class and give to the politically connectedwealth redistribution amoungst friends.There are a lot of different ways to “watch the world burn.”
I guess it was OK when GWB was the Joker on Vanity Fair though? And the Bush Joker looks maniacal, Obama’s is just blank faced, like the lights are on but nobody’s home.
Click on my name for the Bush Joker, you compare.
The thing that worries me the most is this constant refrain about why Obama should NOT get the usual treatments of parody, mimicry and being made fun of openly.
As I recall, those same hands off rules get applied by the followers and supporters of dictators, and megalomaniacs worldwide throughout history. Even if the President doesn’t see himself that way, it’s still dangerous for him to be treated that way.
It stifles everyone’s free speech if some people can be exempted from the 1st Amendment being applied to their selves, actions, or professional lives.
The thing that worries me the most is this constant refrain about why Obama should NOT get the usual treatments of parody, mimicry and being made fun of openly.
That’s not what we’re saying.
Steve, the claim isn’t that people don’t have the right to portray Obama any way they please (though Obama himself appears to have his doubts about that); it’s that the poster in inapt and potentially harmful to the larger substantive point about Obama’s policies.
Personally, I think I might be more sympathetic to that view myself if I saw a stronger, more concerted and more widespread effort to make and hammer home that larger, substantive point. Or an interest in the general public in entertaining it.
Sadly, as inapt and rhetorically unwise as the poster’s portrayal may be, it’s also one of the very few I’ve ever seen that seems to be able to punch through the pop-culture sedation most people are under these days.
I always thought of Barack Obama as “Harvey Two-Face” in the “Dark Knight” analogy. He feeds people on the vapid rhetoric of hope, and thinks that the conventional justice system can keep our society safe. Harvey Two-Face buys into his message of “hope,” while Joker forces him to “change.” I hope that we never get the opportunity to see what Obama transforms into when terrorism strikes close to home.
If Obama wanted to destroy the economy to “watch the world burn.”
What would he do differently?
If Obama wanted to destroy the economy to “watch the world burn.”
What would he do differently?
He’d withhold government help from shaky banks and automakers, cut government spending, pull out of the WTO and NAFTA, and hike tariffs on imports.
How about passing Cap and Trade, Collapsing the Dollar with Stagflation and a VAT on the Middle Class?
If you think subsidizing US companies to improve their competitive advantage is an acceptable trade practice, particularly as compared to tariffs on imports; then you really don’t understand the WTO or NAFTA.
I think some( Jim Garaghty) are over-thinking the poster.
Well Jim, you got 3 out of 6.
He’d withhold government help from shaky banks and automakers
Oh yes, God forbid that Goldman Sachs collapse because government didn’t lend AIG all the money they needed to pay off Goldman. Where would we get future Treasury Secretaries who would take care of his recent Wall Street buddies?
Or what about GM? If Team Obama didn’t “bail out” GM, how would we force the bondholders to beggar themselves preserving the UAW officers’ pensions, or the right of a skilled mechanic in his mid-40s to not work again for the rest of his life? Who would force the new company to build boutique “green” cars that politically conscious Democrats can buy, with their “Cash for Clunkers” payoff from the taxpayers?
Indeed, without government intervention, it’s easy to see that the social parasites among us would have a much harder problem surviving. Tragedy, that.
I guess it’s not just folks on the left who don’t “get it”. As I wrote elsewhere,
“It’s not hard to find commenters who are baffled by the association of the statist Obama with the anarchist Joker, but to me the message is clear: Obama is a person bent on destroying the ‘old’ order of this country (in which freedom is a higher value than equality), and he is using the even older tropes of the left to do it. Obamaphiles can’t see this happening, of course, so they are bewildered by the spreading anger that this President inspires. They lash out with charges of racism, and try to diminish the poster as “dangerous and mean“. They really don’t “get it”. ”
Read the whole thing.
BBB
If Obama wanted to destroy the economy to “watch the world burn.”
What would he do differently?
GWB doubled the national debt by increasing it to $10 trillion. So I guess what Obama should do differently to destroy the economy is be more like Bush.
Really, I find it interesting that Obama increases spending by a trillion when we’re faced by bank failures and imminent depression, and right-wing commentators go ballistic. But Bush increasing it by 5 trillion was never a point of serious concern or debate. How does that work?
All of the evidence to date suggests that O’Bama is less concerned with establishing his ideal system of centralized control than he is with creating more “good cris[e]s” of which he will take advantage. It isn’t important that he pass a particular piece of legislation, only that he pass legislation of some kind that extends the reach of government. You might note that all of the conservatives fall all over themselves to say that they want to do *something* about “health care”, just not what O’Bama wants. All O’Bama wants is for them to do *something.* He’s then gotten what he wants. Which is a long-winded way of repeating Paul’s comment….
But Bush increasing it by 5 trillion was never a point of serious concern or debate. How does that work?
It doesn’t “work,” despite your attempt to ignorantly rewrite history. It was a major source of concern and debate among conservatives and libertarians, and one of the reasons that the Republicans lost the Congress in 2006 (and the presidency in 2008). Despite what is his clear duplicity now, Barack Obama didn’t run on a platform of higher deficits.
Speaking of the Deficit: There is the right way, the wrong (Bush) way and the Obama way.
The Obama way is just like the wrong (Bush) way but seven times faster.
Is that simple enough for you to unerstand Dave?
As bad as Bush was, the debt was tracking GDP growth fairly close, now it has left it far behing. As bad as debt can be, you can double your debt if you double your wealth. You cannot increase debt seven times as fast as your wealth grows Dave.
Here’s one for you, Dave (and a sad example of the breed you are): If a mugger was beating you bloody, and a cop showed up and instead of helping you to a hospital, he set about kicking all of your front teeth out… can he justify his behavior by saying you were already being mugged and he felt he had to do something?
That’s the arguement you’re making there. If Bush running up a 500 billion national debt (although the worst runups were actually done during the incredibly corrupt Reid/Pelosi Congresses, and that much of a percentage of national debt increase is small change historically when there’s a war on, and tax recipts under Bush were sky-high and unemployment was at an astonishing low…as opposed to right now, where the reverse is true) is somehow bad… Obama and the Democrats YOU voted for and are shilling for TRIPLING that debt is not only worse… it’s indefensible.
Except for fanboys, shills, and socialists… and you.
Bad business such as AIG and GM should be allowed to fail.
All business are based on the concepts of contract law, IE we have a contract that can be enforced in court. The Obama administration arbitrarily rewrote contracts in the GM and Chrysler Bankruptcy to give things to the unions and screw the secured bond holders that were first in line for assets. I can’t think of any thing that would chill the business climate more or send future investments looking for a less corrupt government faster. (I do not reward criminals ,my next car will be a Ford, I will never ever ever buy a GM or Chrysler product ever again.)
We are now in an environment where its not your business skill that determines survival, its your ability to kiss up to the democrats.
Just ask the contributor that got 1.4M to fix a single door at a NM air force base or Ask the car dealers, a dealer group was a major contributor to the Democratic presidential candidates, none of their dealer ships got closed ALL of their competitors in their market got closed. This is just as bad as the Kleptocarcy that is now the old USSR.
I don’t defend Bush I think he was the worst Republican President in my lifetime.
I understand that your not saying that here, but that was the context of the first stories I saw on this.
“Just WHO is putting up the Obama Joker posters?”
And the first few TV news stories were the same way.
Wouldn’t The Operative from Serenity make a better comparison than the Joker?
I’ll write about various thoughts.
First, Obama is not a psychotic like the Joker. Quite a few people disagree with him — even some in the Democratic Party to some extent. Making him out to be psychotic, though, works against any rational case anyone cares to make. You don’t persuade people who might be on the fence by making wild claims.
Second, this country does have major problems. There are days when I wonder if we are seeing the beginning of irreversible decline in our nation and world. Most of the time I do not, but there are times when I wonder. The Washington Post this week had two moving stories. One was about a Midwestern family that is literally losing everything. The other was about the truly awful lives of people who work for commuter airlines. How would you like to be working full time and only be able to afford a bunk in a group home? Be kept working so long that you are a danger to yourself and others?
I will make a point about end of life counseling as well. My mother died in February aged 93. I miss her very much. Years ago, though, we did discuss the end of her life. We did this when she was still able to think for herself. Mom was in complete agreement that no extraordinary measures should be taken. I’ve met people who have spent sums like a million dollars on the last few months of some relative’s life. There does seem to be a good bit of that going on. Some people claim that is why we spend so much on health care to so little affect compared with other countries. Yes, in some ways our health care can be seen to be better. In other ways it cannot.
Finally, as a bit of news Republicans on this blog might find comforting, there are two races for governor this year, in New Jersey and Virginia. Republicans lead by significant margins in both. Some people are crediting the Virginia lead to people disillusioned by Obama. New Jersey has some interesting problems of its own which is why Christie has a commanding lead over Corzine currently. People like Christie could be the ones who lead the Republicans out of the wilderness.
“Wouldn’t The Operative from Serenity make a better comparison than the Joker?”
Naah…he was teachable in the end.
I am not enamored with the Obama Joker poster myself. I kind of like the finger in their eye aspect of it after having to put up with all the lame Bush defacements over the years.
I think as a human being, Obama is likely a genuinely decent person(unlike the asshole John Kerry) even much more so than Bill Clinton. I would not mind having him as a neighbor or having him over for a weekend Barbeque. I just think almost everything he believes on a political level is destructively wrong. I think in his mind he means well. I do not think he is deliberately trying to destroy the US (although what he would do different if he were, I could not say….)
I recall something once said about a road to an infernal place and good intentions though.
I think what Obama is doing now has more relevance to the Jack Nicholson Joker than the Heath Ledger rendition
Remember the big parade at the end where he throws money around to all the poor people on the street of Gotham only to then poison them all when they were suckered in?
Most likely the makeup resembles the Heath Ledger character because that imagery is more fresh in people’s mind.
To some extent the part of the Dark Knight where the Joker pits the productive members of society on one boat against the prisoners of the other boat as a personification of class warfare. That is a charge that has been leveled at Obama before.
However, yes I do think this does serve as a distraction of the over arching negative qualities of Obama’s current administration. I also think that the Birthers can be throw into this lot of people who are hurting more than helping the fight against Obama’s socialist agendas.
Amen to that.
I think too many people are over-thinking the poster. Obama is no more the Joker than Bush was (Vanity Fair cover), nor was Bush Hitler, a chimp, or a shrub among many other derisive posters made of him over the years. The Joker poster is effective as the first serious piece of derision of Obama, so of course the Washington Post decides it must be racist. Any ridicule of Obama must be denouced, don’t you know. When Bush was president, dissent was the highest form of patriotism. However, any dissent with Obama in office can’t be allowed and must be reported to the proper authorities for proper inclusion in an enemies list.
Sorry to go off topic. Below is my attempt to help left-wing stooges identify their targets at town hall meetings:
http://tinyurl.com/lc8err
Think this will be useful?
Frank J. has an excellent analysis.
Still trying to figure out which of the current menagerie is the Penguin. Who’s the dapper, tubby criminal mastermind of DC these days?
Al Gore is obviously the Penguin. He was driven into crime by the peril of his Antarctic bretheren
John Kerry is Two-Face as witnessed by his betrayal of his fellow veterans.