The Untouchables – HUMAN EVENTS — This interesting Pat Buchanan essay openly asks if Obama is getting special kid-gloves treatment by pretty much everyone. The flap over the New Yorker cartoon epitomizes the situation.
Why did progressives recoil [over the New Yorker cartoon]? Because the more savvy among them sense that, like much humor, this cartoon was an exaggeration that contained no small kernel of recognizable truth.
Hey no parodies! After all, Barack did dump the flag pin. Michelle did say she had never been proud of her country before now. Barack did don that Ali Baba outfit in Somalia. His father and stepfather were Muslims. He does have a benefactor, Bill Ayers, who said after 9-11 he regrets not planting more bombs in the 1960s. He did have a pastor who lionizes Black Muslim Minister Louis Farrakhan. Put glasses on him, and Barack could play Malcolm X in the movies.
And assume the point of the cartoon had been to satirize the Obamas. Why would that have been so outrageous? Journalists, after all, still celebrate Herblock, the cartoonist who portrayed Richard Nixon with the body of a rat climbing out of a sewer.
Hillary Clinton has been compared to the sex-starved Glenn Close character in “Fatal Attraction.” George Bush’s verbal gaffes are endlessly panned by late-night comics and Comedy Central. But Barack gets the special-ed treatment. Our first affirmative action candidate.
The New Yorker made a “damn-fool decision,” said George Lockwood, a lecturer on journalistic ethics.
David West of Brookings wailed to USA Today of the cartoon: “It’s the mass media at its worst. It perpetuates false information, and it’s highly inflammatory. … It gives credibility to what’s been circulating for months, and that’s what makes it dangerous.”
But dangerous to whom? Again, it is only a cartoon.
For it suggests that Obama is an untouchable to be protected. As an African-American, he is not to be treated the same as other politicians. Remnick and Hertzberg obviously felt intense moral pressure to remove any suspicion that they had satirized the Obamas. No problem, however, if they were mocking the American right.
#26, Dr Duh,
#23 Phydeau
Well if anyone would know about being a racist or a bitch that would be you. Might as well learn from an expert.
I think he was being subtle suggesting YOU are a fucking racist, bigoted, unpatriotic, bitch. Not that I disagree, but if it was me, I wouldn’t have been so subtle.
#30–Confusion==the subject of this thread and my comment was the media coverage of the candidates.
Buy a candle.
I find it fascinating that either side of the political fence should get their panties in a twist as these two are the same creature.
Plutocrat
No matter what happens they will toe the line, change nothing and we will be no truly better off.
The nation changed in 1925. But our government did not.
Cursor_
#28 – Bill – He’s going to be the next President of the Estados Unidos de Ame’rica!!!!
John C Dvorak… is that you?
[No. – ed.]
Pat B. did a great job in presenting a colored truthiness in regards to the New Yorker mag cover. While the insinuations underneath his trughiness are flat out lies, he does re-raise a dead horse that I thought had been beaten to death. The simple fact is that Obama does get a pass from the good natured ribbing and scathing critiques, but on the other hand the worst of McCain’s antics have thus far remained on youtube and out of NBC/CBS and even the New York Times. By the end of August that all will change, but it’s good to see Patty B create a fictional stink out of thin air. Way to blow smoke up our collective asses.
About the New Yorker cartoon cover (I’m framing mine behind glass with a bold title: In Case Of McCain, Break Glass), I like John Stewart’s take on it the best:
Obama should have shrugged it off. The people who DO get all upset over cartoons are the terrorists!
Does anybody else out there have that old Richie Valens song buzzing in the back of their heads, “O Donna..”
Of course they are untouchable, their black. And just like with every other minority, if you say some negative about them, true or not, you are labeled a racist.
Nonsense. The liberals are just learning to do what the conservatives mastered years ago: get incomprehensibly angry about media they disapprove of.
Satire about politics are one thing, race, religion, patriotism and supposed terrorist ties are another.
Why is Pat Buchanan complaining? He was against the publishing of those Mohammed cartoons.
>> Paddy-O said,
>> The 1st Amendment for “progressives” now means Freedom of acceptable speech.
Do you understand how free speech works? Free speech means that we don’t ban speech — even offensive speech. We Americans allow offensive speech and then we counter it.
I haven’t heard a single progressive person say that The New Yorker should be banned.
>> gquaglia said,
>> Of course they are untouchable, their black. And just like with every other minority, if you say some negative about them, true or not, you are labeled a racist.
No. You’re a racist if you play the race card.
Criticize Obama’s policies all you want.
The real story here is that Pat Pukecannon is actually making some sense. But then he’ll sober up and be an idiot again.
Kind of like when women’s tennis made a woman apologize to the williams girls for saying the women’s tennis organization was giving the girls favored treatment.
Please note that she didn’t actually say anything about the William’s girls. Just the Women’s Tennis organization.
It just made the charge stand out in flamming letters thirty feet tall as being proven true.
Ummmm . . . the same Pat Buchanan whose daughter is McCain’s communications director?
After Wright-gate and Bitter-gate and New Yorker-gate you can take this seriously?
Media people criticized Bush for his workout regimen, but now Obama is praised for the same.
#6 “Obama seems to have no real sense of humor that I can see. His wife is no laugh riot, that’s for sure.”. Thank you Mr. Dvorak you truly are enlightening. President Bush has a great sense of humour. He jokes all the time. Is this a requirement for the President of the United States. Make Mr. Dvorak laugh and he will vote for you. Of course “Obama” will not get his vote no matter if he can show Mr. Dvorak he has a sense of humour, because “His wife is no laugh riot”! Is Mr. Dvorak certain she is not a “laugh riot”. Yes and so should we all, because if Mr. Dvorak says it is true we can all say That’s for sure.
This is all moot till after the conventions, when the debates start. THAT’S when I’ll make my decision to vote for McCain, or not vote at all.
#47, Lyin’ Mike,
The truly scary thing is you might actually believe the garbage you write.
John D. – for your information, McCain makes jokes about his age, and the only time the MSM picks it up is when he does something to bring it up.
Paddy-O – did you really try to get budget policy out of the Obama Campaign for months? You might try his website. Is their a line by line budget outlined, no, but why would you think they would have one.
Speaking of Pat Buchanan, his latest book is “The Unnecessary War.” There is a picture of Hitler and Churchill on the front cover. Want to guess what it’s about.
McCain refers to the press as his “base.” What does that tell you about how he gets treated by the press.
The cover of the New Yorker may seem humorous to people who read the New Yorker, but in middle America where they watch Fox News, whose reporters have openly asked the question as to Obama’s patriotism and religion, it’s just more evidence of Obama being a Muslim or terrorist. That shows you how much the MSM is isolated from the rest of America.
By the way, some one said that they would like to see Obama in a town-hall with McCain and answer questions from “real people.” The crowds for McCain’s town halls are staged. Have you seen McCain get a single tough question from any of his town hall meetings? Why should Obama join one of McCain’s town hall meetings when he would get peppered with questions from people screened by the Republican Party? Would McCain do the same with Democratic voters?
It might be interesting to set up a town hall debate with half the crowd screened by the Democrats, and half by the Republicans. We would then see which candidate can think on their feet.
Besides, Obama is leading. Why would he do anything that McCain or the Republicans would want?
#11 – Mr. Fusion,
McCain sleeps with Phil Gramm. Remember the guy partly responsible for $4 gas? Remember Enron? Remember the banks and their bailouts?
Excellent point!! But, don’t forget that Gramm is actually not only responsible for the bailouts but for the laws allowing the banks to do whatever they wanted with CDOs, CMOs, and credit default swaps without even the oversight to make sure that those providing the credit default swaps, a form of insurance, actually had the money to provide the insurance.
Foreclosure Phil is even worse than you say.
And, remember, McCain claims to have no financial experience. So, he hires Foreclosure Phil as his financial adviser. Good idea. At least it shows he was being totally honest when he said he did not understand finance.
#22 – Stephanie,
Very well said. I knew there were people with brains in Texas … just not in the Bush family.
<off-topic>
I’m just curious though, as a Texan with a brain, how do you feel about the fact that your vote counts less than those of every other state? Texas is even worse than California and New York. It takes four votes in Texas to equal just one vote in Wyoming.
Is there any movement in Texas to abolish the electoral college?
</off-topic>
#38 – gquaglia,
Of course they are untouchable, their black. And just like with every other minority, if you say some negative about them, true or not, you are labeled a racist.
Um … actually, if you say anything bad about any group as a whole (in the majority or the minority) rather than individuals, that is the definition of racism, if the group is a race, or bigotry either way.
Now, how can atheists get this protection. No one seems to have any qualms about showing open and blatant disrespect and discrimination of atheists. And, no one ever calls the discriminatory induhviduals bigots.
So, actually, you may be incorrect about this being true of any minority.
#55–Scott==what has you all junked up about the electoral college? Its a constitutional provision requiring 2/3rds (?) of the States to approve a change. Given there is an annual transfer of wealth from the top 50% richer states to the bottom 50% poorer states and most of the poorer states are smaller states, what makes you think there is any chance at all for such a power shift ever being voluntarily agreed to?
Its like gun control. A bad law that our country is based on with lots of politicians holding onto it for dear life as a protection against common sense and political equal representation. Do away with electoral college and you will do away with the State Structure of the USA. You can argue the pro’s and con’s of that, but not the likelihood that it will ever be done.
Why not argue against gravity==shouldn’t it be less?
Misanthropic Scott,
I haven’t heard of anyone protesting anything here. Oh how that frustrates me!
I live in Arlington which I do believe is the largest city in America without public transportation. Somehow the taxpayers didn’t want to pony up any money up for that but yet they voted to help fund a new MEGA stadium for the Dallas Cowboys. Are they going to be called the Arlington Cowboys!?! What do you think…
So people are up in arms here when gas is now getting close to $4 a gallon but they voted to pay for football rather than mass transit. Sometimes people only learn the hard way. Not many people will be able to even pay for a seat at the new stadium.
Until people are really hurting (which is getting closer everyday) they don’t do anything about pushing out the “good ol’ boy clubs” out of office.
I sense a slow but sure shift here in conservative land. When those middle class turned poor conservatives are now hurting for aid that no longer exists due to tax cuts, they will end up changing their minds.
Disclaimer – I am a Texan, born here and live here but I did spend 11 years in Southern California.
I do enjoy not paying state income tax though.
It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad, mad U.S.
#57 – bobbo,
#55–Scott==what has you all junked up about the electoral college?
The fact that my vote doesn’t count at all in practice or as much as many other people’s even in theory is a huge part of it. My state is often a landslide. Why vote? Democracy means one person one vote, not one Wyomingite is worth four Texans.
Clearly land doesn’t vote. If land voted, it sure as hell wouldn’t vote to be raped and pillaged. So, people vote; land does not.
Its a constitutional provision requiring 2/3rds (?) of the States to approve a change. Given there is an annual transfer of wealth from the top 50% richer states to the bottom 50% poorer states and most of the poorer states are smaller states, what makes you think there is any chance at all for such a power shift ever being voluntarily agreed to?
Interestingly, that is merely an argument of hopelessness, not an argument that the electoral college is correct or fair.
Its like gun control. A bad law that our country is based on with lots of politicians holding onto it for dear life as a protection against common sense and political equal representation.
I’m not seeing the correlation.
Do away with electoral college and you will do away with the State Structure of the USA. You can argue the pro’s and con’s of that, but not the likelihood that it will ever be done.
True and true. But, do you then argue that because something bad is hard to change that we should not try? I think you may be being even more defeatist and pessimistic than me.
Why not argue against gravity==shouldn’t it be less?
I think we don’t get to vote on the physical constants of the universe, so this may be just a tad of a red herring.
#58 – Stephanie,
I haven’t heard of anyone protesting anything here. Oh how that frustrates me!
Damn!! Sorry to hear that. I thought/hoped that a state like Texas would have been the perfect place for such a movement to start. You guys get hit even harder than we do here in New York and you don’t have the hatred from middle America that New York and California do.
I live in Arlington which I do believe is the largest city in America without public transportation. Somehow the taxpayers didn’t want to pony up any money up for that but yet they voted to help fund a new MEGA stadium for the Dallas Cowboys. Are they going to be called the Arlington Cowboys!?! What do you think…
Sorry for my tendency to answer rhetorical questions. I think that I couldn’t care less about the names of teams, NJ Giants vs NY Giants when they play in NJ, I couldn’t care less. What do I think? I think we have more important matters. I think you should get your public transportation.
Sometimes people only learn the hard way.
Unfortunately, that is the only way most people learn, if they learn at all. Let’s see if we can learn the hard way before it’s too late.
Anyway, it gives me hope to hear a sane voice from the “red states”, as if we needed to define our nation along such lines. Perhaps the powers that be like to divide us into red/blue to divide and conquer. Who knows? I’m sure we all have a lot more in common than we have differences if we could look at what’s really important and stop getting caught up in all the BS.
#61, pedro,
It’s you.
Vote Pedro for President… NOT (in my best Borat voice).