Author: Michael O. Allen

Now, This is Satire!

Satire has to have an element of truth to it, I told a friend a couple of days ago in my argument with people over why the New Yorker magazine cover did not work as satire.

I found this piece at Huffingtonpost.com talking about the same subject and using a political cartoon trying to puncture some of the magazine’s editors’ arguments for using the cover. But I believe the HuffPo writer messed up a little. Only a little.

He failed to mention that Cindy McCain was indeed addicted to prescription drugs that she stole from an organization that she headed; Maverick, good ol’ Johnny Mac, is actually very, very old (I hear he’s going to be 150 years old on Inauguration Day); and  he so did  sing that song before an audience.

What I don’t know is whether Mr. Clean hearts Dick Cheney the way B. Hussein O. allegedly adores Osama.

In contrast to the Horsley cartoon, which is a veritable documentary of the lives of the McCains, there’s no piece of information in the New Yorker cartoon that you could point to as being true about either of the Obamas.

So, the New Yorker disseminated the worst of right-wing smears that bear no relationship to the truth about the Obamas.

Finally, Horsley’s cartoon is not likely to get either of the McCains killed. The New Yorker’s cover is an invitation for some deranged patriot to go out and try to kill the Obamas.

Devastating

That is the only word that comes to my mind regarding the New Yorker magazine cover drawing of Sen. Barack Obama dapping his wife as an American flag burns in the fireplace in a White House with Osama bin Laden’s picture up on the mantelpiece.

I don’t know how the New Yorker could have, whatever they were thinking, done this.

You cannot call this satire because, in my thinking, there has to be some element of truth for satire to work. What is the truth in that cover illustration? It is a distortion, an attack, unexpected one at that from an unexpected source.

Just because Fox News, power-hungry Republicans and right wing crazies think this is not reason to do their dirty work for them. What the New Yorker did is do the dirty work for the nuts and Obama enemies. It renders in living color their fondest dreams of Obama.
Some people have said that the magazine’s audience is very sophisticated and can process this image and see it for the satire that it is. First of all, sophisticated or not, this audience is not better than the larger population at sifting through distortions. But, the greater damage is that a broader audience than the magazine’s readership will see this image.

Please, just watch how many times Fox News throws up that image.

What Republicans and their coalliton of 527’s make hay with this image.

This image creates another problem for the Sen. Obama’s campaign: every second that they spend trying dispel the noxious fumes from this is precious taken away from making a case for the senator’s candidacy.

What good is the mainstream media? First, the media establishment refuses to be honest brokers in this election. Now, they are generating the filth and introducing more pollution into the political environment.

The insidiousness of this image is that it makes it harder to convince the good people of Findlay, Ohio, for instance, who have goodwill toward Obama but are having a hard time getting past all the garbage that’s been thrown at them. Here it is, more kindling. From the New Yorker no less.

Get ready to be disappointed.

Gail Collins makes a good point in today’s New York Times. Addressing the growing chorus of folks on the Left who have expressed dismay over Senator Obama’s so-called shift to the center, including the Times’ own Bob Herbert and most recently the Rev. Jesse Jackson, she notes that Obama’s been in the center all along:

Think back. Why, exactly, did you prefer Obama over Hillary Clinton in the first place? Their policies were almost identical — except his health care proposal was more conservative. You liked Barack because you thought he could get us past the old brain-dead politics, right? He talked — and talked and talked — about how there were going to be no more red states and blue states, how he was going to bring Americans together, including Republicans and Democrats.

Exactly where did everybody think this gathering was going to take place? Left field?

I think that a lot of people are going to be disappointed with Senator Obama’s moderate positions in the campaign. Many African Americans and young people, in particular, cast their votes for Obama not because of his policy positions but because of intangible factors like the symbolism of electing the first black president or feelings of hope engendered by the Senator’s soaring rhetoric. As Collins points out, these people are just now waking up to what Senator Obama has been saying all along — that he’s the moderate candidate who can bring the Left and Right together.

Remember that back in December, before the Iowa caucuses, Senator Clinton was the great liberal hope. She had all the policy positions in place to address the concerns of each of the various interest groups that dominate the Democratic nominating process. Indeed, that was the well-known and explicit strategy of her campaign manager Mark “Microtrends” Penn. But after Senator Obama’s superior ground game won him the Iowa caucuses, he became seen as a viable candidate. Emotion took over from reason.

I don’t mean to suggest that there’s anything wrong with voting one’s hopes. Emotion plays an enormous role in politics. But I do agree with Collins that folks who now claim to be disappointed with Senator Obama weren’t really listening to him.

So what’s a disappointed Lefty voter to do? You can vote for Ralph Nader. I fully expect to him to trot out the old canard that Senator Obama isn’t any different from Senator McCain. That worked well for him in 2000 and could easily lead to similar results again this year. You can always stay home on Election Day, which would have the same effect. You might as well vote for Senator McCain.

Or you can suck it up and get ready to be disappointed. Politics ain’t perfect. It’s a constant struggle. You win some, and you lose some. If the Disappointed Left isn’t able to see that they would win more with a President Obama than with a President McCain, then they’ll get the only president that they deserve.

Cross-posted from Facebook.

'Integrity' update

I mean, did John McCain really just try to pass off as a joke his crack about killing Iranians?

Are they responding to news of Iranian missile tests? Has no one been listening, or reading the news lately?

File photo of an Israeli fighter jet taking off from an air force base.

Hasn’t Israel been making noise about attacking Iran? The George W. Bush administration giving hints that it may well attack Iran?

An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites looks “unavoidable” given the apparent failure of sanctions to deny Tehran technology with bomb-making potential, a deputy to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said recently.

What is Iran supposed to do? Stand pat?

A photograph released by the news website of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards shows four of the nine missiles test-fired on Wednesday.

It’s leaders would be negligent if, in the face of such threats, they do nothing to show that such an attack on their nation would not be cost-free.

The Times story, by Alan Cowell and William J. Broad, began this way:

Iranian Revolutionary Guards practicing war-game maneuvers test-fired nine missiles on Wednesday, including at least one the government in Tehran describes as having the range to reach Israel.

The tests drew sharp American criticism and came a day after the Iranians had threatened to retaliate against Israel and the United States if attacked.

State-run media said the missiles were long- and medium-range weapons, and included the Shahab-3, which Tehran maintains is able to hit targets up to 1,250 miles away from its firing position. Parts of western Iran are within 650 miles of Tel Aviv.

The tests, shown on Iranian television, coincide with increasingly tense exchanges with the West over Tehran’s nuclear program, which Iran says is for civilian purposes but which many Western governments suspect is aimed at building nuclear weapons. Iran’s military display came just a day after the United States and the Czech Republic signed an accord to allow the Pentagon to deploy part of its contentious antiballistic missile shield, which Washington maintains is designed to protect in part against Iranian missiles.

If we’re going to go around threatening war, we should not be surprised that the target of our threats show some spine, instead of cowering. We would ask no less of our country. Why do we expect different from Iranians?

Mr. Integrity

(AP Photo) Republican candidate John McCain has some lipstick wiped from his face after a peck from wife Cindy in Denver.

He’s a guy who has gotten by on the barest minimum effort as others have paved the way for him. What he’s best at is posturing as a patriot, war hero, moderate, blah, blah, blah.

He gives the term shape-shifting a bad name. Whatever shape you want him to conform to, he’ll do it, no matter how hypocritical he looks doing it.

He was deep in the pocket of Charles Keating, vacationig at Keating’s resort homes while carrying water for him on Capitol Hill. He’s a philanderer who abandoned the wife and children who stood by him when he was a war prisoner because of disabling injuries she suffered in an accident.

Yet, he enjoys the best of reputations in Washington.

How does a man who is so utterly corrupt manage to convince everyone he’s Mr. Clean without ever changing his ways?

You’ll need a gullible press for that and that is, as he has bragged himself, his “base.”

In this alleged joke, this man who aspires to lead our nation expresses his genocidal thoughts about the people of another nation. I mean, already in this campaign season, we’ve talked about “bomb, bomb” Iran and “obliterating” Iran. Meanwhile, the current administration beats the war drums, threatening to attack Iran.

Is it that far-fetched to think that McCain would not give a second thought before nuking Iran, gassing its people?

I wish . . .

Sports Illustrated would stop doing the insane poll where Major League Ballplayers vote Derek Jeter the most over-rated player in baseball. Year in, year out, he shows again and again how it’s done. On the field. Where it matters.

(AP Photo) New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter makes an off-balance throw to second base to force out Tampa Bay Rays’ Dioner Navarro on a ground ball hit by Willy Aybar to end the top of the seventh inning in Major League Baseball action Tuesday, July 8, 2008 at Yankee Stadium in New York. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)

If anything is clear, those who are saying that are jealous and hating on a player. You can take this to the bank: If four World Series rings and playing in two other World Series does not put that to rest, Jeter will most likely get 200 hits this season, or come damn well close. I will pick him to start my team in any sport.

an apology *

Owing to my pausity of posts, original posts, lately, I feel I owe you, gentle readers, one.

I suppose I could make an excuse and say that I am overwhelmed with work but that’s not a good enough reason. Everyone is overwhelmed. I could, maybe, blame the end of the intense primary campaign season, withdrawal from my disappointment and frustration with the conduct of people I’d once supported (mostly Bill & Hillary), but that’s not good either.

Or, is it the summer doldrums (can you have summer doldrums? and what is a doldrum, anyway [a dull, listless, depressed mood; low spirits is one definition]?)? Nah, even if true, that’s not it.

No, these are not good enough.

Even with the end of the primary season, so much is happening in the world, people being born and killed in equal measures. Our world is at a boil and the damage seems irreversible.

Every possible institution, including religions and governments, continues to fail us.

We are powerless. Power, that’s the operative word.

Those who have it hoard rather than share it. It cannot be coopted from them. Co-option, that is what Sen. Barack Obama is trying to do. I support Obama. He should be, at the very least, President of the United States. John S. McCain–a corrupt, incompetent, selfish man who has never cared about anyone or anything but himself–should not be a part of the discussion, but he is.

More power to Obama on wresting power from these people. It’s easier sucking venom off the tongue of a snake. I hope his quest does not send him to the ranks of martyrs.

The problems of these world. What can you say that is not banal? trite? foolish? I want to fight somebody, something.

I am overwhelmed. Disgusted. Angry. Tired. Depressed. Defeated. Disoriented. Demented. Lost.

What is the solution, other than heavy medication?

Breaking news!

Webb Withdraws as Possible Vice President Pick for Obama By Amy Gardner, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, July 8, 2008; Page B05

U.S. Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) announced yesterday that he will not seek a place on the Democratic ticket next to Sen. Barack Obama, ending months of speculation that he was a front-runner for the vice presidential nomination.

Webb told Obama (D-Ill.) last week that “under no circumstances” would he consider the vice presidency, according to a statement issued yesterday. Webb said he will campaign for Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president.

Continued . . .