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Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Obama as "The Joker"- Mystery Partially Revealed

When posters of Barack Obama Photoshopped to look like Batman's nemesis "The Joker" (with the word "Socialism" below the caricature) started being plastered all over Los Angeles, California and then around the country, no-one had a clue who was behind it. I'm sure people automatically assumed some right-wing, gun toting, middle-aged conservative was responsible, because anything that happens to be anti-Obama of course must originate from the the Republican camp. And although the mystery of who has been placing these posters nationwide still remains, well, a mystery, the L.A Times actually tracked down the person who initially created the graphics for Obama as The Joker, and it's definitely not who you would think it would be.

Firas Alkhateeb, a 20 year-old student of Palestinian descent, whose family lives in Chicago and who wanted Democrat Dennis Kucinich as President, admitted to the artwork, albeit in a different format. During his winter break, history major Firas, using Adobe Photoshop,

turned a Time magazine cover photo of Barack Obama into the nefarious Joker of the Batman series.


Firas then uploaded his work to Flickr (photo-sharing site) to share with friends, back in January. Someone then downloaded the photo, edited out the Time Magazine graphics and added "Socialism" to the mix. Although we can guess what political affiliation the perpetrators of the "socialism" version have, we can't assume so. After all, not all Democrats voted for Obama and many are becoming increasingly disillusioned.

Firas was not thrilled with Obama so he did not vote last November.

"After Obama was elected, you had all of these people who basically saw him as the second coming of Christ," Alkhateeb said. "From my perspective, there wasn't much substance to him."
And though he prefers the Democrats in terms of foreign policy, he admitted he agrees more with Republicans on domestic policy.

So, although he isn't a full-fledged liberal, he is a Democrat. Hopefully people will stop assuming that only conservatives are critical of Obama.

2 comments:

Pamela Zydel said...

Isn't it always like that though? Anytime someone criticizes Obama, it must be a Conservative. If you're against this health care monstrosity...you MUST be a Conservative. Isn't it possible that we are just Americans that are against certain things we just don't like regardless of political affiliations?

Frank Partisan said...

Consciousness always tails events. The Great depression started in 1929, and you didn't see protests much until about 1934. In bad economic times, people are cautious.