I agree with Libby Spencer that Limbaugh’s Obama/Perry photo comparison is not only inaccurate and more-than-vaguely racist but also artificial, given that the pictures are 30+ years old.
This is a better comparison and, yes, even in this gun-lovin’ NASCAR nation, Real Murkins don’t want Yosemite Sam in the White House (do they?):
Turgidson
There’s a decent chunk of this country (27%?) that would vote for the Unabomber just to get rid of the Kenyan sockulist usurper. So yes, Yosemite Sam would be perfectly acceptable to a surprisingly large number of voters.
unabogie
Doug, you should compare Perry to one of those pictures of Saddam Hussein. He also loved to pose with pistols.
Jenny
These pics are better.
http://asiasociety.org/blog/reasia/photo-day-ecstatic-troops-greet-obama
http://img153.imageshack.us/img153/8853/horstobama.jpg
Jenny
@unabogie:
Rick Perry’s Saddam moment – part one.
Rick Perry’s Saddam moment – part two.
Big Baby DougJ
@Turgidson:
He’s the ideal FDL primary opponent, then, right?
Turgidson
@Big Baby DougJ:
Bingo.
kdaug
@Turgidson:
Ah, but there’s the rub. The monied class can’t stand Perry. Within a week of Perry’s announcement, Huntsman was making the Sunday rounds. Huntsman’s a “No Sale”, but the cash is still casting.
It’s a division that’s been decades in the making – Goldbricks v. Zealots. The money started this game by grafting onto the televangelists, “prosperity gospel”, mega-churches with concession stands, et.al. And once again, the bluebloods find their monster’s once again out of their control.
They made their bed of thorns. It comes with a price. Ask Wall Street what they think about defaulting on the debt.
James E. Powell
Oh yes they do. For a thin slice of the American public, the president is the chief executive of the federal government with all those powers, expressed and implied, in the constitution.
But for the vast majority of Americans, the president is a reality show contestant. They watch the ‘news’ in order to root for or against him.
MoeLarryAndJesus
Has anyone dug up a picture of Rush’s cyst-encrusted ass at 22? Not that anyone really wants to see it, but let’s see what that humongous Nazi bastard looked like back then.
James E. Powell
A related note. I have, like many people, a whole bag of issues with Obama’s policies, but I have to say that when it comes to his public appearances, how he carries himself, how he acts, how he speaks, I give him an unqualified, first class, A double plus. He’s almost good enough to make me forget the clownish, boorish, ass-wipe who was in the White House for eight years before him. Do you guys remember Bush giving the German chancellor a massage? Talking with his mouthful to Tony Blair?
Turgidson
@kdaug:
I dunno. I agree he’s not their first choice, but Perry, for all of his swaggering idiocy, still doesn’t seem like a true-believer nutjob like Bachmann. I think he’ll allow himself to be controlled by the Galtians if he actually does win the nom and, god forbid, the presidency. I think he has enough of a self-preservation streak to play ball.
Violet
@MoeLarryAndJesus:
Found this photo of a young Rush Limbaugh on some blog. I don’t know how old he was here, but it looks very 1970’s.
Yutsano
@Violet: Once a fatass always a fatass I guess.
kdaug
@Turgidson:
Doesn’t matter. The GOP may be trending anti-intellectual, but the money isn’t.
True believer or not, Perry’s most definitively a snake, and he will bite the hand that feeds him (“It’s my nature”). If the Hosanna chorus starts clamoring for X that’s expressly against the monied interests, my bet is he’ll swing toward Jebus.
He can take cash under the table (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) but he has appearances to keep up for the hoi poloi.
This will resolve itself one way or the other. Unfortunately, both paths lead to oblivion.
different church-lady
You know who else served in the military in his 20s? HITLER!
Turgidson
@kdaug:
The GOP has been running this con for decades. I agree the somewhat-sane-but-total-asshole money boys have considerably less control than they have in the past, but I also think a President Perry would make the Jebus speech but sign the Wall Street bill under cover of darkness.
But I freely admit, I could be wrong. Just my instinct – he’s a big business stooge who does the God-bothering swagger schtick more for the optics than because he actually believes it. Maybe closer to actually believing it than GWB ever was (which I admit is kinda terrifying), but he’ll still consider it his #1 priority to line the Galtians’ pockets.
jharp
Yosemite Sam?
Very funny. Good one.
Villago Delenda Est
@different church-lady:
Yeah, but unlike George W. Bush, he volunteered for combat, was wounded, and was decorated for bravery.
George W. Bush deserted from the fuckin’ Air National Guard.
Joseph Nobles
Oh, yeah, Rick Perry never ever once touched the evil Mehican weed mariJewanna. Never happened at all, no, never.
Violet
@kdaug:
Rick Perry is all about Rick Perry. He’ll do what benefits him. Be a Democrat when he got into politics and then switched parties when it was expedient. Got into Jeebus when it fit his political needs. If he needs to pacify the Wall St. Money boys, he’ll do that without blinking an eye. Whatever he needs to do.
Expediency is a language monied interest speak. They don’t have to like him. They do have to feel like he’ll do their bidding. I think he’ll be able to sell them that feeling.
kdaug
@Turgidson:
Agreed – Perry occupies the middle between Bush and Bachmann.
Bush came from breeding, though – dumb as he was, he was still a legacy Skull & Bones Yalie – and he was controlled. A couple stern lectures from Scowcroft or Baker and he knew enough to sit down and shut up.
No one knows how Perry will turn. And nobody wants to bet their fortune on that.
Corner Stone
Hey Big BJ. Why no lyrics from someone like Three Days Grace, Chevelle or Seether?
Corner Stone
There is absolutely nothing special about Selena Gomez.
There. I said it.
Violet
@Corner Stone:
But she’s dating the Bieber!
Anonymous
@Violet: Limbaugh looks like a young Ron Jeremy in that picture.
MoeLarryAndJesus
@Violet:
Damn, he looks like Ron Jeremy’s underendowed cousin.
Kane
Lets compare the college photos where Obama is president of the Harvard Law Review and Perry is a cheerleader.
joeyess
In a word….. yes.
joeyess
Sorry. I’m going to be an insufferable pedant when it comes to this fucking Texan.
Anne Laurie
@Turgidson:
Mega-dittos, as they say in Wingnut Wurlitzer prey-er circles. Perry devoutly believes in that sect of Heartland American Jeebus-ism which proclaims the rich, straight, white American Heartlander man the pinnacle of all creation — how could he not, when every time he looks in the mirror he sees that self-same RSWAHM leering back at him?
If Goldman Sachs/BoA/Citigroup makes Perry a more self-aggrandizing offer, the Jeebus talk goes down faster than a TANG jet in the hands of a drunk Aggie. James Richard Perry believes, first foremost & entirely, in the importance of James Richard Perry.
On the other hand, Willard ‘Mitt’ Romney is the Northern version of JRP, only with more money and probably even fewer scruples (and by ‘scruples’ I mean ‘tribal loyalties’). Either of them would be a terrible, terrible President — but there’s reason to hope they’ll inflict some crippling damage on each other before the Republican primaries gimp into Tampa.
Nora Carrington
I refuse to register at Politico to smack them upside the head, but the link they provide to the “original” of the Obama photo does not work. Dunno if the rest of them are broken or not but I find it telling that in the 40 comments thus far there, no one mentions that the (presumably) damning original photo of Obama the Dope Smoking Radical is OMFG missing!!!
Spaghetti Lee
A Politico link, to a Rush Limbaugh rant, about Rick Perry? Jeez, Doug, you tryin’ to kill us?
Splitting Image
Bugs Bunny is a liberal elitist, as evidenced by the smug way he talks about studying law. The fact that he is consistently presented as defeating a hard-working American like Yosemite Sam is evidence of the cartoon industry’s liberal bias.
Spaghetti Lee
@Splitting Image:
And don’t get me started on that Daffy Duck…lazy, shiftless, always trying to scam somebody…black feathers, of course. That weren’t no accident.
TenguPhule
No its worse then that. They want Elmer Fudd after he’s been hit by too many anvils to be in charge of decidering.
JGabriel
Ross Douthat:
Shorter Douthat: Don’t hold us to the same Fox News standards that we judge everyone else by!
Hypocrite.
.
Splitting Image
@Spaghetti Lee:
Agreed. Donald is at least a hard worker and a devoted family man.
magurakurin
@different church-lady:
best Godwin ever? It has a chance. I love it. Very appropriate as well as witty (not snark)
And yes a good third of the US if not more want Yosemite Sam as president. This the main salient fact that just doesn’t seem to absorb into the minds of the poster over at DKOS. Perry/Bachman might beat Obama even he gets their oh so precious votes they threaten to withhold.
Sly
@Splitting Image:
He not merely defeats them; by constantly dressing as a woman he actively works to undermine their devotion to God’s Law, turning them toward perversion and corrupting the institution of marriage.
gene108
There’s a large chunk of Americans, who will respect Rick Perry for waving a gun around in public.
These are the folks, who sign up for conceal carry permits and feel any rule attempting to regulate gun ownership – background checks, for example – is one rule too many.
The photo doesn’t diminish Perry in anyway for his target audience, those who would support a Republican, it just reinforces reasons they have to support him.
Also, Obama handing the Congressional Medal of Honor to a Marine reinforces the right-wing view that Obama is dumb and can’t do anything by himself, such as tie his shoes. He didn’t do anything brave and tries to get credit from a Marine for handing out a medal.
All-in-all this photo has some appeal to liberals, but does nothing to refute right-wing stereotypes and prejudice.
harlana
@Violet: haha! sharp. he’s gotta unibrow.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Violet:
El Lardo looks like some 70’s porn actor…lol! Of course it would have to be on a farm and involve bestiality, but I could totally see him doing that.
harlana
honestly, Obama is 22 in that other pic? He looks 12.
Shawn in ShowMe
Is it just me or does the cigarette in the Obama pic look fake? It doesn’t appear to be in his mouth so what exactly is holding it aloft?
bob h
@jenny
They both color their hair, too (or did).
Jim
To be fair if the 2012 election featured Palin vs Carter the wingnuts would, I’m sure, choose the 22 year old in the Naval Academy whites over the chick in the “I may be broke, but I’m not flat busted t-shirt”. Values matter to those folks.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jim: This is obviously true. They aren’t hypocrites, right?
nancydarling
@Violet: I look at that picture of Rush and it occurs to me the whole basis for his misanthropy, misogyny, etal is the likelihood that he couldn’t get laid when he was 22.
Emma
@gene108: I know the American people are stupid but except for that 27%, their stupidity has some limitations. It is the President’s duty to (sometimes) hand medals to service men. They know it.
robertdsc-PowerBook
@gene108:
The military man that Obama is handing the MOH to is in the Army, not Marines.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@nancydarling: He looks like all the white guys I knew back then who raved against “disco” and extolled the virtues of “real music.”
Blacks and gays did disco; white guys did classic rock.
Rush is just another white man of his generation.
bob h
I’m thinking that picture of Perry with the gun will be worth millions of female votes for our side. As Chris Christie shows, women do not like belligerent, warlike men.
different church-lady
@magurakurin:
…and not my original — saw someone else do it here a few months back. Even better actually: it was something like, “You know who else was like Hitler? Hitler!”
Glen Tomkins
“Real Murkins don’t want Yosemite Sam in the White House (do they?)”
Let’s hope not.
But if there is one thing that might make even otherwise sensible people crave a little Yosemite, it would be the prospect of four more years of No Drama, the guy who can’t get excited even when he should.
Hovercraft Full of Eels
Actually, that picture of Rick Perry reminds me a bit of this guy.
Libby
Thanks for the shoutout. Appreciate it. And Jenny, those are all great pix. For the record, I didn’t do any of the edits myself. Just passing them on and archiving for future reference.
Glen Tomkins
@different church-lady: Yeah, and Adolf was an actual decorated combat veteran. Heads and shoulders above Dubya and Perry.
gluon1
@Hovercraft Full of Eels Someone thought of that and, via NPR (!), I offer this.
honus
@Villago Delenda Est: I don’t think Perry was wounded or decorated for bravery. He flew C-130s (transport planes) from 1972-1977, and I don’t recall any hostilities during that time. I wonder why, given the fact that Perry was born in 1950, he was never drafted or volunteered to serve in Vietnam. Maybe there was a deferment for cheerleaders. It is interesting that W, Cheney and Perry all were cheerleaders, and avoided service in Vietnam.
Rebecca
I don’t know about you, but I’d totally vote for the cute kid in the hat over the douche with the fighter plane.