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Politics

Turnabout is … uh, What Were We Supposed to Angry About, Again?

Matt Welch | 7.18.2008 9:39 AM

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Matt Welch is an editor at large at Reason.

PoliticsCulturePrintJohn McCain
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  1. R C Dean   17 years ago

    Is it just me, or have John McCain’s legs been turned into the torso of some Asian dude?

  2. Sam-I-Am   17 years ago

    And he became 35 again.

  3. BakedPenguin   17 years ago

    Sam I Am, McCain wasn’t 70 when he was shot down. If anything he had more hair than that when he landed in North Vietnam.

    RC – the artist tried to hide that obvious mistake with the fellating girl. Not a bad strategy, but he didn’t quite pull it off.

  4. Episiarch   17 years ago

    Holy shit that’s great. If only The New Yorker had the balls to do this for realz. The blowjob would be too crude for them, though.

  5. Legate Damar   17 years ago

    My wife was trying to convince me that the Obama cover was HI-larious. I didn’t bite.

    Her: How could you NOT think it was funny?

    Me: I just didn’t.

    Her (rolling her eyes): You weren’t offended by it, were you?

    Me: No, I just thought it was dumb.

    So congrats, New Yorker, you’re two for two. Please stop existing so that I can stop hearing about you. Thanks.

  6. joe   17 years ago

    The New Yorker would never run a cover like that.

    It would never occur to them. If somebody came up with an idea like that for a cover, he’d get bawled out by his boss.

  7. MP   17 years ago

    Anther cover here.

  8. Episiarch   17 years ago

    I don’t get the New Yorker hate. You don’t have to be a martini-swilling, monocle-and-top-hat wearing, Andover-and-Brown attending hyper-WASP named Chip, Biff, or Muffy to enjoy the absurdity of the magazine that such people read.

  9. dr_dog   17 years ago

    Way to not follow the link, Legate.

  10. tarran   17 years ago

    For the clue-impaired it’s not a real New Yorker cover.

    Someone was just having fun with Gimp or a Gimp clone.

    I think it’s high-larious.

  11. Episiarch   17 years ago

    Wait a second. There are people who thought that was real? Jesus fucking Christ.

  12. Not really Barack   17 years ago

    The New Yorker would never run a cover like that.

    Because it’s not satirical. Just third-rate crude. There’s a difference that many cannot comprehend, thus the continuing debate long after normal America has forgotten this 1-day story.

  13. jtuf   17 years ago

    If you’re a little rough on your Roman history, Nero is the one pegged as the arsonist in the Great Fire of Rome by Suetonius and Tacitus, even though he blamed it on the Christians.

    Or as Nero liked the call it, “The Capital Redevelopment Project”.

  14. John-David   17 years ago

    Did a wormhole just enter this comment section? One of these posts is not like the others.

  15. Colin   17 years ago

    That Seattle Observer one is ten times better than this one or the original. It’s actually funny.

  16. John-David   17 years ago

    Oh, I see. Never mind.q

  17. joe   17 years ago

    Because it’s not satirical. Actually, it’s exactly as satirical as the original, in that it depicts the most over-the-top stereotypes and smears bring hurled at the candidate.

    I love this “If you didn’t laugh, it’s because you didn’t get the joke” attitude. It’s what an unfunny comedian says when no one laughs, because there can’t be any other reason no one finds the joke funny.

  18. Legate Damar   17 years ago

    My bad.

  19. Episiarch   17 years ago

    The New Yorker would never run a cover like that.

    It would never occur to them. If somebody came up with an idea like that for a cover, he’d get bawled out by his boss.

    I didn’t laugh, but I did get it. Is that what you’re talking about?

  20. joe   17 years ago

    I don’t follow. Buried antecedent.

  21. Episiarch   17 years ago

    Now that is funny. Well done.

  22. Fluffy   17 years ago

    It’s what an unfunny comedian says when no one laughs

    But when some people laugh and some don’t, then it’s likely that the comment is true.

    And this cartoon sucks. To be like the Obama cartoon, and incorporate every criticism of McCain made by crazy people on the internet, the cartoon would have to include MY criticisms, in pictorial form.

    That means that McCain needs to be:

    1. Giving his first wife the finger while sticking his other hand in Cindy’s wallet.

    2. Giving George Bush head.

    3. Signing an order to torture a prisoner, while saying words to the effect of, “All that stuff those GOOKS GOOKS GOOKS did to me, do to this prisoner. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure no one ever charges you with a crime.”

    4. That’s already more hands and mouths than McCain has, but we somehow have to have him jamming a German WWI helmet up the ass of someone in private enterprise and telling them that the pursuit of private gain is degrading and that only service to the volk is noble.

    5. Calling Cindy a cunt.

    6. Dialing the phone to call some political hack to have them try to gin up criminal charges against anyone who blew the whistle on Cindy when she stole drugs from a charity.

    7. He should also be tying a gag around the mouth of a statue of Thomas Jefferson.

    There’s really too much stuff for one cartoon. Maybe someone talented can come up with a way to represent all this in one image, but I doubt it. Especially since they’d need to include the criticisms of McCain which I don’t make because they’re lies, but which other crazy people on the internet DO make, like the accusation that he got special treatment from the NVA in exchange for giving them information.

  23. P Brooks   17 years ago

    The girl with her face in McCain’s lap is Jane Fonda. Now do you get it?

    Do I have to spoon feed this stuff to you people?

    Laugh! goddammit! That’s funny shit.

  24. scratch   17 years ago

    obama will need a thicker skin if he wants to be president. it was a cartoon. it was funny. get over it.

    plus, the obama cartoon could have been far worse. it could have portrayed him as an abortionist wearing flip-flops.

  25. joe   17 years ago

    Oh, yeah, Obama sure is doomed.

    If only he’d adopted the John Kerry non-response strategy. Really, that’s how you win an election when there are smears flying around about you.

  26. Barack Obama   17 years ago

    stop picking on me guys… it’s not fair.

  27. Nigel Watt   17 years ago

    stop picking on me guys… it’s not fair.

    Would you like us to email you some R-E-S-P-E-C-T?

  28. joe   17 years ago

    Funny how you never see anyone who actually wants Obama to win claiming that his response to this was poorly handled.

    I’ll take Concern Trolls for 500, Alex.

  29. scratch   17 years ago

    respond? yes. stomp feet and whine about how you’re portrayed in a cartoon? no.

    it’s like when piazza held a press conference to say that he wasn’t gay. no one really took the rumors about him seriously until he took such great pains to deny them.

    not wise.

  30. joe   17 years ago

    “how he was portrayed in a cartoon”

    Cute.

    So, did they make is nose bigger or something?

    You don’t get it – this is a great sympathy moment for Obama. He loves this story. It gives him campaign something to push back with when the Repbublicans argue the press is going easy on him; it gives him a chance to hit back against the “scary radical whitey-hating Mooslim” stuff without having to be the one who raised the subject; and it encourages the press to give those attacks, or anything like them, an even wider berth.

    Shoot, two days ago, there were people writing on the thredz that this must have been a set-up by the New Yorker to help Obama.

    You want to gainsay the effectiveness of the Obama campaign’s media strategy? You go right ahead.

  31. Grandson of Sam   17 years ago

    Funny how you never see anyone who actually wants Obama to win claiming that his response to this was poorly handled.

    You must not watch any of the major news networks, joe.

  32. Fluffy   17 years ago

    Funny how you never see anyone who actually wants Obama to win claiming that his response to this was poorly handled.

    I thought the response was well-handled, I just also thought it was fundamentally dishonest.

    Faux outrage can be a winning strategy. That’s why people do it. It still diminishes the person who does it.

  33. joe   17 years ago

    You must not watch any of the major news networks, joe.

    Yeah, that’s me.

  34. scratch   17 years ago

    —it gives him a chance to hit back against the “scary radical whitey-hating Mooslim” stuff—

    the vaunted obama media machine kept alive a story wherein the following words were repeated over and over:
    “muslim,” “extremist,” “ak-47,” “obama,” and “radical.”

    most of the country only half listens to these types of spats and what they will take away from the story come november is “hey, wasn’t there something about obama being a muslim extremist.” well done, guys.

    btw, is this mccain cartoon supposed to be an insult because it makes him look pretty awesome. how dare you portray mccain as a swashbuckling soldier who resisted torture and is found irresistible by women!

  35. Focus Groupie   17 years ago

    That’s outrageous- cancel my subscription, immediately. And send the refund to Code Pink.

  36. R C Dean   17 years ago

    The girl with her face in McCain’s lap is Jane Fonda.

    Hey, if I had vintage 1972 Jane Fonda blowing me, I’d be giving a big thumbs up, too. Holy crap, was she hot in her day.

  37. joe   17 years ago

    scratch,

    “muslim,” “extremist,” “ak-47,” “obama,” and “radical.”

    I hear you, and there’s a lot of sense to what you’re saying, but I think the horse has left the barn on that one.

    That was the thinking behind Shrum’s advice to Kerry not to hit back against the Swift Boat guys.

  38. PC   17 years ago

    I don’t get the connection to the Obama cover. Barack Obama really isn’t Muslim nor is his wife a black panther.

  39. scratch   17 years ago

    it’s so boring to argue with reasonable people. agreed that there is a danger in not responding to rumors, but this is far different from the swift boaters. this is an isolated political cartoon on the cover of a magazine that no swing voters read, not a well-funded, well-coordinated 50-state tv and radio campaign to impugn military service.

    also, shrum has terrible instincts, so it’s wise to just do the opposite of what he does.

  40. Guy Montag   17 years ago

    Michelle Obama owns an AK-47? Makes her even hotter in my book.

  41. joe   17 years ago

    it’s so boring to argue with reasonable people.

    You know who else thought it was boring to argue with reasonable people?

    Hitler! 😉

    this is an isolated political cartoon on the cover of a magazine that no swing voters read, not a well-funded, well-coordinated 50-state tv and radio campaign to impugn military service. This cartoon is, but the content portrayed is absolutely a part of a well-funded, well-coordinated 50 state campaign to smear Obama.

    also, shrum has terrible instincts, so it’s wise to just do the opposite of what he does. Srsly. Maybe he’s good at strategy and message, but he has no tactical sense whatsoever. He would have told Barack Obama to just ignore the Jeremiah Wright stuff. “It’ll blow over, don’t even dignify with a response. A speech? That’s a terrible idea!”

  42. joe   17 years ago

    Guy,

    Ask her to sign a pack of welding rods, then take a picture with your cell phone.

    It makes her even hotter that she’s always giving him that “You’re not going to get any sleep tonight” look on stage.

    We haven’t had any hawt in the White House in 45 years.

  43. Chloe   17 years ago

    If that were a real cover I’d think it was funny as hell. But then I thought the Obama one was funny too.

  44. John Thacker   17 years ago

    This cartoon is, but the content portrayed is absolutely a part of a well-funded, well-coordinated 50 state campaign to smear Obama.

    Look, joe, can we finally stop talking about the Clintons? They lost the nomination.

  45. joe   17 years ago

    Yes, Mr. Thacker, you can stop bringing up the Clintons in conversations about the racist rumor-mongering on LGF, FreeRepublic and NRO any time you want.

    The idea that they were running that trash at the behest of the Clintons was always implausible, but to continue to push it as this late date is just pathetic.

  46. *   17 years ago

    R C Dean | July 18, 2008, 12:48pm | #

    Hey, if I had vintage 1972 Jane Fonda blowing me, I’d be giving a big thumbs up, too.

    If you had ANYONE blowing you…

  47. R C Dean   17 years ago

    We haven’t had any hawt in the White House in 45 years.

    And we’re not gonna get it this time around, either.

  48. Al Swearengen   17 years ago

    Barack Obama | July 18, 2008, 12:01pm | #
    stop picking on me guys… it’s not fair.

    Pain or damage don’t end the world. Or despair or fucking beatings. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man and give some back.

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