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The poster shows the US president with white face paint, dark eyeshadow and smudged red lipstick above the caption “socialism”, in anapparent attack on the US president’s efforts to reform health care andstimulus spending.
It is unknown who created and distributed theimage, which some believe has racial overtones because it shows MrObama as a black-and-white minstrel in reverse.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, president of the Los Angeles Urban PolicyRoundtable, denounced the image and called on those behind it to revealthemselves. “Depicting the president as demonic and a socialist goesbeyond political spoofery.
“It is mean-spirited and dangerous.
“Wehave issued a public challenge to the person or group that put up theposter to come forth and publicly tell why they have used thisoffensive depiction to ridicule President Obama.”
A stark visualcontrast to Shepard Fairey’s popular red, white and blue image of thepresident-elect featuring the caption “hope”, the “socialism” image hasappeared as Mr Obama is facing a growing swell of criticism as heattempts to force through his $1 trillion health care programme.
The”socialism” poster has spread virally across the internet, crashing thewebsite that first displayed images of it and rising to the top ofGoogle’s “Today’s Hot Trends” list. Paper versions also appear to bespreading, with some showing up in Atlanta, Georgia.
SomeRight-wing commentators have seized approvingly on the image. ThomasLifson wrote on the conservative American Thinker website: “It isstarting. Open mockery of Barack Obama, as disillusionment sets in withthe man, his policies, and the phony image of a race-healing,brilliant, scholarly, middle-of-the-roader.”
The liberal tabloid”LA Weekly”, which depicted George W. Bush, the former president, asDracula on its cover in 2004, denounced the Obama-Joker poster asvirulently racist.
“It has a bit of everything to appeal to thedrunk tank of California conservatism: Obama is in white face, hismouth (like Ledger’s Joker’s) has been grotesquely slit wide open andthe word ‘Socialism’ appears below his face,” wrote its blogger StevenMikulan. “The only thing missing is a noose.”*
*While we at EAU and WVWNews were/are no fans of President George W. Bush, we seem to recall a Micheal Moore motion picture that depicted President Bush’s assassination even as he sat in the White House! Can’t recall the title, but such is the breathless hypocrisy of Frankfurt School leftists in 2009. –Ed.