Obama and the Joker

I don't know if you've seen it yet or not, but apparently there's a poster of President Obama done up as the Joker, as portrayed by Heath Ledger in the most recent Batman flick, making its way across the ether after appearing on telephone poles in and around Los Angeles. The word socialism appears below the face. Needless to say, the left has promptly informed us that it is racist.

You know, until everyone can be mocked equally we will have no real equality in this country. Especially as we saw then President Bush mocked as the very same character last year (in Vanity Fair, no less) and no similar hue and cry erupted from the scions of societal norms in the press; how very selective they can be in their choices of right and wrong. But the bottom line is this: Mr. Obama is President of the United States. He is subject to all the parody and ridicule which comes, unfortunately or not, to those who hold the position. He sought it knowing this, and to be fair to him I have heard no angst from him personally as of this writing. So maybe it's simply his media allies promoting the charge.

They need to chill out. Even if you accept that the poster is in bad taste, which I will entertain that it may be, you need to back off and accept that this sort of thing happens and is not automatically racist. Given that this particular Joker is indeed a very evil persona, at the least play fair and condemn the Bush imagery along with the very pointed jibe at Obama. Because neither man is truly evil; if the current Chief Executive merits defense on the matter on that point, so too does the former.

If it is fair to deride Bush as evil, then it is fair to let others view Obama the same way. If it is unfair to Obama, then it surely was unfair to Bush on similar grounds. The big difference, however, is that the major media were the purveyors of the slight against W.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave...