In 2008, Barack Obama went out of his way, along with a complicit media, to present himself as the successor to Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president.
During the first year of his presidency, he seemed to be doing a heck of a Nixon impersonation.
The latest edition of Time magazine portrays him as the successor to the greatest Republican president of the 20th century, Ronald Reagan.
What’s next, Obama’s going to present himself as the second coming of…?
Responding to Time’s new cover, “What a difference a shellacking makes,” Mark Finkelstein of Newsbusters writes:
Just after Barack Obama won the White House in 2008, Time photoshopped him into an iconic FDR photo at the wheel of a convertible, jaunty cigarette-holder in mouth.
Obama was riding high as the champion of the left, the promise and personification of a born-again big-government New Deal. That was then, this is the 9+% unemployment, recent-shellacking now. So with which president does Time now find it in the president’s interest to be associated? Why, Ronald Reagan, of course.
The new Time cover, unveiled by Time editor Rick Stengel on Morning Joe today, features a Photoshop of a smiling Obama and Reagan, the Gipper’s arm draped around PBO. The legend: “Why Obama Loves Reagan,” [a symbolic heart in place of "loves].
Or as blogger Full Metal Patriot quips, “To paraphrase Time’s headline, what Obama sees in Reagan is an enemy of socialism. What Reagan sees in Obama is an enemy of liberty.”
In Photoshopping a smiling Gipper alongside Obama, Time seems to be doing a deliberate callback to their earlier Photoshop of Reagan shedding a tear over the current crop of Republicans in 2007. And as I wrote back then, the basic strategy of once a great news publication forced to do PR stunts such as this to sell magazines is the same:
It’s ridiculous of course — between the Gipper’s 11th Commandment, and the fact that unlike his father, Bush #43 has taken so many of his cues from President Reagan, I doubt Reagan would be too upset with him. But then of course, the goal of Time’s cover isn’t to criticize the president from the right (since, oh, about 1968, that would hardly be Time’s style), as much as to get conservatives to raise a stink about the magazine, even if they wouldn’t be caught dead buying it.
Incidentally, I’m pretty sure I saw nearly every Time cover in the 1980s, but I don’t remember them running a similar story on President Nixon’s disappointment in the Gipper, even though from fiscal to foreign policy, Reagan’s conservative stances were remarkably different from Nixon’s surprisingly liberal governance.
So I doubt very much that Reagan is looking down and shedding a tear.
Henry Luce might be, though.
More after the page jump.
Yeah, I can’t wait until the squish-heads at TIME photoshop Obama with Sandy Koufax because their pitching styles are so similar. Sandy could throw a 98 mph fastball over the low-outside corner of the plate and Obama can hit that same corner on two bounces.
Instead of an image of Reagan, Time should have used the scowling image of the ‘holy prophet’ of Islam, Muhammed, holding a sword of Allah (bloodied from a fresh decapitation), while leering with an erection at a little six year old first grade girl.
After all, Muhammed is Obama’s real fetish, not Reagan.
‘Why Obama Hearts Muhammed’ – now that would have been more truthful!
~ The Infidel Alliance
Cha-Ching!
You’ve got that right!
Forgive my Canadian ignorance but who is the guy in the picture at the end of the article? I’m quite interested in history but I don’t recognize him. Judging from the hair and clothing styles, I’m tempted to guess someone like Calvin Coolidge but I’ve seen pictures of Coolidge and he was much older than the guy in the picture….
Henry,
Yes, that’s Coolidge.
Good job on the billboard scene, btw! It has something of an Edward Hopper feel to it.
Please accept my apologies on behalf of every other Canadian for Henry. He must be a plant from… actually I think I’ll just stop at ‘plant’.
Now, now, lads. Surely there must be cooler heads these days in our unheated attic. After all, ‘Silent Cal’ didn’t go for the high profile media thing. He even made his kid work on a farm all summer instead of getting him a cushy gubmint job.
The problem is, he took his non-interventionism too far. He failed to reverse Prohibition and didn’t abolish the Federal Reserve when it was still “small” compared to today.
He cannot run a mouse pointer over an image to say if it says anything.
Our last true Conservative and the greatest American Persident of the 20th Century.
This is just despicable. Old enough to remember when the same media strumpets trashed the hell out of the Gipper. Now they are using him to manipulate public consciousness? Obama as Reagan? The spittle from Obongo isn’t good enough to shine Reagan’s footprints, let alone he elegant footwear. F-off.
Hold on a minute. First the media informs us that Obama is becoming “Reaganesque”. Then, we hear that Reagan was mentally incapacitated while he was in the Oval office. For once, maybe the main stream media is really onto something.
“Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.”
The point seems to be you have to be at least 30 today to really remember anything Reagan did while president, so let’s just co-opt his name and try to convince enough Americans that the Reagan who won in 1980 was really no different ideologically from, say, breakaway Republican John Anderson (or Mike Bloomberg), and maybe that will get the moderate swing voters back on Obama’s side
Even a lying Marxist like Obama knows the truth; he doesn’t stand a snowballs chance in hell of being re elected. So he ‘s depicted with a real leader,hoping some of Reagans greatness will be associated with him. Fat chance you communist creeps!
unfortunately I disagree. American’s are showing progress in the we like the “I won” polls…it doesn’t take much to fool the people in the liberal states.
in a couple of months it will be a rabid open season on anything conservative, and we won’t fight back…just whine..
I have a sister in law that is “still” convinced Obama is the savior of America, despite the fact she lost her job, cannot sell their house etc, stupidity abounds. “recovery is right around the corner” to the “vote for Obama cause he’s black and understands” people. The people that wrote the constitution would die..you understand.
I fear that moment is already here. Though it’s mostly a Main Stream Media / SinistroSphere effect, political rhetoric is as loud and as venomous as it’s ever been.
However, voices on the Right appear to be less pusillanimous than we’ve been in recent decades. At least we’re giving the true coloration to these hate-fests on the Left, even if we’re not returning fire as violently as we might…yet.
I could not write this comment before because I was vomiting. My definition of the perfect pitch: when tossing Time in the garbage can and it hits the last copy of Newsweek.
Mr. Driscoll, I missed that photoshop last time around. I’m “borrowing” it now, though. Awesome.
Jonk,
A link back is nice, but just as long as the URL is visible, go for it.
Done and done. Thank ye, sir.
I understand Time is working to photoshop a picture of Barrack and his BFF (best friend forever) Jesus Christ. It’s taking a little more time finding a good picture of The Son of God, but I am sure it will be well worth it.
Oscambo is a pseudo-christian; actually a moslem. I saw and heard him say so on TV and he did so again during a speech in Egypt. Selling arms to the islamic Saudis and totally failing to curtail islamic Iran’s acquisition of nukes adds to the evidence of his real religious identity.
Click on Antisocial Personality Disorder and see that he matches up with all the diagnostic criteria.
Sandra -
Wau ahead of you…..
http://lizbett54.blogspot.com/2009/09/obama-self-portrait.html
From the Soviet Union: The future is known, it is the past that keeps changing.
(Via Protein Wisdom)
If progressives can not change, hide or obscure the historical record, they would not exist anymore and if photoshops portray unlikely realities, that is perhaps the most unlikely.
Time magazine.
A complete waste of trees.
Barry (or, more accurately, Bill Ayers) wrote in one of his self-aggrandizing books that it was 1983 and his hatred of Ronald Reagen that lead him to pursue a career in law, because it was as a lawyer one would accumulate the necessary power to effect “change.”
Picturing the two together in any context other than adverserial is nothing short of political heresy.
I think I’m going to go throw up in my mouth now.
it is simply a case of the marxist TIME magazine’s propagand for the marxist obama
…it is what lying scum do …lie !
It is official: The Dems are completely out of ideas for how to reinflate Barry’s empty suit. When they trot out Ronnie, you know it’s curtains for The One.
I believe the wild gyrations of Hawaii’s Governor are actually an emergency signal from the Left begging the right to save them from their savior.
Okay Mike Reagen!!! time to say something LOUD!!!! about this picture
Blasphemy!
Obama the new Reagan? Does this imply that Obama has Alzheimers?
The title is incorrect, it’s Mad, not Time.
Let’s be more clear.
This is a deliberate strategy by Alinskyite marxists.
They expect that pretending Obama is similar to Reagan will fool a few hundred thousand Reagan democrat voters into voting for little Lenin. There can be no doubt that they poll-tested it and they have an estimate of the exact number of voters who will be fooled.
It would be nice to be able to say that it won’t work, but they are probably right. There will be many low-interest, low-information, natural conservative who will be tricked.
You know, I wouldn’t mind a forthright debate in this country. Let them take the masks off, stop the con games, and put their vision on the table. We do otherwise. Debate it for 6 months. If we lose, so be it.
But they will never do that will they? 95% of what they do is lie about who they are and what they do. The low-key, one-name “progessive” posters on PJM. Marxists, all of them. Paid marxists.
They are contemptable criminals and future murderers. We know, because they are 100% on the path of Lenin and Stalin. Nothing is beyond them. They have no morals, no ethics, no lie is too great, no deception is too obscene. Some people reading this are saying to themselve, “it can’t be. This is America”. No it isn’t. Think about the past two years. It’s about power from the moment they wake up to the moment their eyes close in sleep. They dream about power and dominance.
Don’t be fooled by “civility”. Don’t be fooled by “compromise”. Don’t be fooled by “moderation”. They aren’t. You shouldn’t be either. The end game isn’t liberalism, the end game is the complete and total destruction of the only force for good in the world…and your lives and the lives of your children.
#18…”They are contemptable criminals and future murderers.”
Exactly!!! It’s high time we started to stand up to these would be masters. This country would be so much more awesome if we didn’t have these miscreants messing up everything. One thing though, future murderers? Ask, if you could, any of the millions of the unborn who didn’t make it. They are wrong and they are dangerous and need to be treated as such.
The majority of Americans can’t remember what happened five minutes ago.
It’s official. I really, really hate the left.
As alluded to above, this is like Stalin airbrushing himself into all the primo Lenin shots.
Jesse Unruh, California’s all powerful speaker of the assembly, complained to William F. (Bill) Buckley that in 6 months in office, Reagan had not yet met with him. Buckley mentioned this to Reagan.
Reagan replied: “Jesse is on the other side. Whats the point in letting him say that he has spoken with the governor about this problem and that problem. If he wants to cooperate with me he can do that any time. Doesn’t need to be over drinks. The Reagan I Knew, William F. Buckley, Jr. pp 18-19
Reagan would have looked at Obama as the pathetic rookie that he is and would have nothing to do with him. Reagan did not tolerate fools. Obama isn’t fit to lick clean the souls of Reagan’s riding boots.
I think that’s well said and entirely on point.
Although, boots have soles, not souls…
When I first saw this I thought it was Jimmy Carter and the man who saved
us from him, President Reagan. I thought to myself why would a magazine present
the two together. Isn’t that a reminder of a the disaster of big government
back then? Then I thought, trying to draw wild comparisons like this they
must be out of touch. That is a recipe for bankruptcy. Too late…..
maybe its just me, but doesn’t that left hand Ron has gripping obiwon’s arm look just a little too long? ha! proves this is not a real picture.
i call this pix ‘a hand too far’.
it’s not enough to be aware of the regime’s propaganda going on with this… We need a counter-propaganda action now!
PLease someone at PJM take some initiative regarding this. We will be your soldiers.
I propose a photoshop of Obama with a Pinocchio nose, and the caption “WTF?”
The late President wouldn’t touch 0bama with a 39 1/2 foot pole.
If I were one of Ronnie’s descendants, I’d sue TIME magazine for slander.
If he Ronald Reagan were alive today, Obama would not be fit to stand in the same room as Ronald Reagan. The cover in Time Magazine is insulting to the memory of that great man. Just shows you what propagandists with Photoshop can do. Disgusting.
Yes I have noticed that American (Democrat mainly) propaganda is absolutely shameless when it comes to lying about, well, anything. Perhaps I expect too much from the land of the free.
I was around before and when Reagan was elected US President and the vituperation against him was similar to that we heard for GW Bush more recently.
I remember gleeful centre leftist friends playing an LP entitled “The Wisdom of Ronald Reagan” and all it played was the hiss of the needle.
I then see him venerated as the “Great Man” a few decades later by the same sort of people.
A prophet has no honour in his own country or in his own time?
Why is the human race so duplicitous as to let the MSM and friends get away with this?
As Reagan might say, “There you go again, TIME magazine.”
Can someone do an “audio Photoshop” of that?
YouTube
I wish more people would wake up and realize just how incredibly dangerous to the survival of our Republic and to our personal liberties the propagaganda media has become.
In spite of all of the stories about the demise of the mainstream media, it is still an incredibly powerful tool in the hands of the marxists in control of the Democrat party. Tens of millions of Americans still believe the lies which are issued by this media on a daily basis which enables the democrats to maintain a grip on power.
It seems totally ridiculous on the face of it, that anyone would dare connect President Reagan to this feckless marxist usurper of the White House but it is disheartening how many Americans will wholeheartedly buy into it.
On the other hand who reads Time magazine anymore?
we should co-opt Bill Clinton in return and introduce Clintoon’s
’93 budget. Most items were a third of what Obama has and the numbers were at $4.4 Trillion, way under Obama’s give-away govt.
Why’93? Because Clinton was much beloved then and the first black Prsident.Yeah! Let’s adopt that budget and force the Donks to defend it,
I like the photo of Hussein Obama with his suicide vest with long fuse slowly sizzling away.
I’ll post it when I find it.
This must have been done at a wax museum. And Obama’s wearing lifts in his shoes to make him look taller. Even in wax, Reagan has more substance.
I saw this coming a few weeks ago when I came across an item somewhere saying Obama was reading a biography of Reagan. It was one of those artful leaks that prepared the battlespace for what was to come next. Obama is tired of the comparisons to Bill. He always comes off second best. So he is reaching farther back in time and counting on the memory loss in this country brought on by short attention spans. “Reagan, wasn’t he a president way back that some older dudes like?” That’s what independent voters will say to one another. “It must be all good then, man.” They bought HopeyChangey, why not Reagan redux?
I hope the REAGAN family will SUE them for this indecent, this libelous propaganda- they are MORBID- using dead people to SELL the naked emperor-
was it not shameless enough to make a campaign speech at a dead little girl’s eulogy? and then praise their dear leader for it?
Not enough to make sure every article in every newspaper and mag is only proBAMA? – not enough to demonize and shout down anyone who dares contradict them like Beck? or Fox?-
not enought to make end runs arounfd your rights and get power in ONE PERSON’s hand to shutoff internet??
Every day I think _ OK this is the most over-the-top these scumsuckers can go- there is another shameless hustle for the Obamao..
Is it any small wonder Time Magazine now offers annual subscriptions for ten bucks?
Anyone notice that it is Reagan’s arm around Obama and not the other way around, as if the Gipper totally approves of the illegitimate Kenyan? The only accurate portrayal of Reagan reaching out to B.O. is his hands wrapped around Obama’s scrawny neck.
If I were Speaker Boehner(something like that), I would thank Obama for admitting Reagan was the best Pres ever.Why else would he want his approval.???
Wonder what the left thinks of it.Wake them up and ask them.
What’s next, Obama’s going to present himself as the second coming of…?
MUHAMMED. It should be obvious!
~ The Infidel Alliance
PUKE. Just PUKE.
Is it just me or does Reagan on that cover look like a phucking wax-museum figure? I don’t even think they photoshopped real photo of Reagan.
So absolutely pathetic and sickening.
SCUM
MAD magazine cannot be happy about having a new direct competitor.
If BO is as smart as were supposed to think, he should NOT want to come in on the coattails of Lincoln.