« The Case Against Incest | Main | Goodbye To Matt » The Hayes-Douthat Slugfest17 Jul 2008 10:46 am It's been happening all week, first at TPMCafe and then in this Bloggingheads conversation. Here's a short clip, in which I offer my two cents on the Obama cartoon controversy: Our remarks on Obama's fundraising, though, seem to have been overtaken by events. Comments (5)
Not exactly a "slugfest", but still somewhat interesting. You both set a nice example of friendly political banter by people who, if you started talking about actual policy proposals, would be polar opposites. Of course, politeness doesn't generate big ratings. It'll work on bloggingheads.tv, but not Fox. 
I agree 100% - if this cartoon was a satire of Obama rather than Obama's critics you would see Jeremiah Wright plunking a piano in the corner, singing "God Damn America."
A perhaps unintended but wickedly funny alternative satirical target of the cartoon is current Obama supporters of the type I knew at Yale in the late Sixties -- selfconsciously tragically hip people from Old Yale Families who acted out their snide dismissal of their stuffy parents by glorying in the transgressive glamour of Che and Angela and, later, of Bill Clinton. Gary Trudeau (St. Paul's '64 and don't you ever forget it) is a poster child of this zeitgeist. Michelle O in full Che bandolier and Angela afro -- yes!! A corollary of this silver-spoon celebration of transgressive radicalism was Sarah Pillsbury's belief (sister of Trudeau's roommate, heiress of the doughboy fortune) that after the Revolution, her fortune would somehow remain intact: when asked during Mayday by a fellow member of JE College from a (to her) pathetically blue collar family what if letting the Panthers camp out inside the college gates might lead to the disappearance of some people's stereos, she snorted "oh for heaven's sake if people lose their stereos I'll just buy them new ones." Seriously, I've been appalled by this attitude all my life and I can just see those folks, who have such positions of power today, smirking over the thought that it would be so intensely fun if only the Obamas actually were radicals. Like Mlle. Vinteuil in Proust finding an outrageous way to get back at her square father....
A perhaps unintended but wickedly funny alternative satirical target of the cartoon is current Obama supporters of the type I knew at Yale in the late Sixties -- selfconsciously tragically hip people from Old Yale Families who acted out their snide dismissal of their stuffy parents by glorying in the transgressive glamour of Che and Angela and, later, of Bill Clinton. Gary Trudeau (St. Paul's '64 and don't you ever forget it) is a poster child of this zeitgeist. Michelle O in full Che bandolier and Angela afro -- yes!! A corollary of this silver-spoon celebration of transgressive radicalism was Sarah Pillsbury's belief (sister of Trudeau's roommate, heiress of the doughboy fortune) that after the Revolution, her fortune would somehow remain intact: when asked during Mayday by a fellow member of JE College from a (to her) pathetically blue collar family what if letting the Panthers camp out inside the college gates might lead to the disappearance of some people's stereos, she snorted "oh for heaven's sake if people lose their stereos I'll just buy them new ones." Seriously, I've been appalled by this attitude all my life and I can just see those folks, who have such positions of power today, smirking over the thought that it would be so intensely fun if only the Obamas actually were radicals. Like Mlle. Vinteuil in Proust finding an outrageous way to get back at her square father....
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'Overtaken by events' now means 'utterly wrong?'
However, I agree with your (dinner party) take on the cartoon.
Posted by James | July 17, 2008 10:39 AM