Regarding ‘Our First Gay President’ and Other Goofy Recent Newsweekly Covers
As a result, the reader bases of these magazines have imploded. Regarding Newsweek, Wikipedia charts their plummeting readership over the past decade: “In 2003, worldwide circulation was more than 4 million, including 2.7 million in the U.S; by 2010 it was down to 1.5 million (with newsstand sales declining to just over 40 thousand copies per week).”
Rendered dinosaurs in the age of the Blogosphere, Time and Newsweek now have to resort to stunt covers both to gin up PR, and in the hopes that somebody buys the thing when they see it in the checkout line at Pathmark or Walgreens. As the London Daily Mail reported on Sunday, “After Time magazine went with a cover shot of a young blonde mother breastfeeding her 3-year-old boy, Ms Brown is said to have taken it in stride, saying ‘let the games begin!’”
That covering the news is now a “game” highlights the lack of grown-ups in the newsroom and the editors’ offices. Beginning in the mid-1960s, a period when Luce retired from Time and shortly afterwards, passed away in 1967, the magazine began to quickly distance itself from his roots, and his founding vision for the magazine. Luce’s parents were Presbyterian missionaries to China; Luce was a moderate-to-liberal Republican who believed strongly in strengthening the Orient’s ties to America. As I mentioned in the recent video, during America’s transformation into an intellectual adjunct of the Weimar Republic, by the end of the ’60s, Time had asked, Nietzsche-style, if God was dead, turned its back on supporting the Vietnam War, and was asking…who are those strange people in middle America who voted for Nixon?
Still though, give Newsweek editor Tina Brown credit for one thing — albeit not necessarily intentionally. After spending 2008 putting up near-weekly covers with Obama in one messianic pose after another, and comparing him to Lincoln (Newsweek), FDR (Time), and belatedly Reagan (Time again, in 2011), at least Tina has put up a cover that will give Obama plenty of derision in flyover country. Henry Luce cared about those readers when he invented the genre of news magazines in the early 1920s. Ninety years later, like Pauline Kael and Nixon voters in the ’70s (“I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don’t know. They’re outside my ken. But sometimes when I’m in a theater I can feel them.”), Time and Newsweek have largely written them off, and are only vaguely aware they exist.
In the meantime, as Jazz Shaw writes at Hot Air regarding the Newsweek cover, “When is the shark definitively jumped and the daily bread burned past any reasonable definition of being toast? Ladies and gentlemen, this would be that point.”
Barack Obama, on the other hand, has gone in the course of less than a decade from full throated* support of gay marriage to full opposition on religious grounds, back to full support. Are we really supposed to be buying this?
Apparently Mr. Sullivan thinks so. And Newsweek is more than happy to jump on board with a cover which will probably go down as one of the most ridiculed and satirized efforts in the history of magazine publication. (But I wouldn’t mind a piece of the sales from the poster, though.) Yeesh.
Not to mention sell plenty of copies of the latest edition of Adobe’s Photoshop program. I’m not sure how much it’s going to revive the currently atrophying fortunes of either Tina or Barry, but hey, as I wrote back in September on earlier larger than life, and yet somehow…unfortunate…moments with the president, Yes We Camp!
* Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.
The first American homosexual president?
Ok so we guess we do not have to worry about the collapse of the CA economy any more
What a relief–we should tell our children and grandchildren not to worry about the crippling national debt they face
be happy/gay don’t worry–something like that?.
” Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have is not permanent”
we guess
This bodes poorly for the rational thinkers of the USA.
Now if we don’t like Obama, we’re either homophobes or racists!
That’s been the leftist message for the duration, that criticism of Obama is tantamount to racism.
The tactic is nothing more than a STFU attempt at intimidation.
Zo sets it straight
The first gay president may have been Buchanan. That didn’t work out well either.
Hope we can avoid a Democrat led rebellion this time.
In the not too distant future, the phrase “jumped the shark” will be synonymous with “made the cover of Newsweek” (by dint of Newsweek’s frequent and repeated shark-jumping which will have made the phrase “Newsweek jumped the shark again” totally redundant.)
I didnt found your blog easily on Goggle I am so gratefully for the information I found here . However I still have to know a little more about this subject so returning to google it will be . Goodness I personally don’t like googling all night to get some thing : why aren’t almost all weblogs similar to your website
#Gaylo is suggested for the wits of twitter.
I don’t know who thought it up first, so don’t credit me for it.
Because the gay crowd is so clamant, leftist rags like Newsweek must think they are a majority or a large minority, and not the 4-10 percent that most search results state they are. Newsweek is not helping Obama with that cover.
While wallowing in self-congratulatory celebrations of victory, little were they aware of the festering tides of resentment which flowed just beneath their perceptual horizons.
Try 2.5%. While in some urban coastal cities the figure might be somewhat higher, reputable studies show that in the Western nations the percentage of gays runs from around 1.7% to 2.7%. Thanks to a self-selection process that aggregates them in the arts and other media, plus a news media overwhelmingly pro-gay, their influence is much stronger than their mere numbers would indicate. Their incomes tend to be higher that average and since most are without children their disposable income is also very high. You do realize O’s “evolution” is about campaign donations? Also his cynicism regarding that blacks, who as a group are very anti-gay, will get in line behind him because they have nowhere else to go.
I, too, have read that the percentage figures for the number of homosexuals in the population have been inflated by those pushing the GLBT agenda; first, to make homosexuals seem like a pretty common, normal variation, rather than outliers on the bell curve, and also to inflate their perceived political and economic power.
Although, with the stranglehold homosexuals have on the MSM, the Arts/Entertainment complex, and many other centers of power here in the U.S., and their usually higher income–due to not having to raise and support kids–they do have political and economic power all out of proportion to their percentage representation in the population.
Groups like CAIR have tried the same kind of crap with their claims that there are 7.5 million Muslims her in the U.S., when statistics gathered by more objective organizations put their number at something like 1.5-2 million.
Although, with the number of Muslims our government keeps bringing into the country (one example being the primitive, militantly Islamic Somali “refugees” the Congress/State Department/various NGOs/do gooder/church groups have imported and just plunked down in the middle of American communities, often with little notice to, or care for what the real American “natives” wishes are, the number could now be a lot higher than 2 million Muslims.
It seems almost beyond belief that Time provided livelihood for Whittaker Chambers, and Luce stood by him in those difficult days. How far, how sad Time has become.
1. Obama is probably bi-sexual (by definition he can’t be gay if he fathered two children);
2. Andrew Sullivan is a lousy source for anything, and has a clear agenda on the topic;
3. I see the campaign is going to get very, very personal, and will soon devolved into “whose dog is a bigger bully than the other guy’s dog”…
Okay, have fun. Politics is a laugh riot.
Larry, in response to item 1, there is an old story you should know.
A young lady was looking to renew and update her welfare status and the following exchange put the whole situation into a nutshell.
Welfare agent, “Your application states that your husband died five years ago, but you report children aged Four, Three, Two, One, and One in the oven. Can you explain this?”
Applicant, ” He died, I didn’t!”
Excellent. Apparently there are no limits to what housewives will do to survive, and who can blame them since they are exposed to politicians on a daily basis.
As regards your item 1, I would point out that “It is a wise child that knows its father”.
Most of the punpits are decidedly-if not purposefully-missing the mark regarding this ‘outing’.
While it is being hyped as comparable to Clinton being called the ‘First Black President’, this is an outing of a different color. While the MSM won’t touch Obama’s sexual proclivities with a ten foot pole, surely they too know he is ‘on the down low’. Yes, he is.
Therefore, the conversation would do a service-to one and all- if it is turned upside its head, proclaiming its underlying meaning/mesage.Yes, Obama IS the first gay POTUS, regardless of wifey and children in tow.
When Michelle saw the Newsweek cover, she went “Yrrrch” and made him take an ELISA.
I find it amusing that Time and Newsweek, whose editors and staff I’m sure have always disparaged the Enquirer and other tabloids, are now resorting to using the same cheap, attention-grabbing headlines as a tactic for luring in readers at the checkout stand.
Still, I’m not sure these shock covers are an effective approach. Years ago I remember watching my aunt surreptitiously buy a copy of the Enquirer, a guilty pleasure of hers; people of a certain class weren’t supposed to be interested in such “trash.” It seems to me that adopting a tabloid strategy will only further alienate the Time and Newsweek target audience, most of whom wouldn’t be caught dead buying a “rag” like the Enquirer. In other words, why would you risk embarrassing yourself at Whole Foods when you can go home and read the article online?
What about poor President James Buchanan? I thought he was the first gay president…
He stayed pretty much in the closet but he did leave the closet door wide open.
The New Yorker couldn’t wait to get in on the act, either;
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2012/05/13/new-yorker-magazine-cover-white-house-rainbow-coalition-columns
The triumphalism of the progressive news mavens is, IMHO, just a bit ridiculous. In fact, it sort of reminds me of a race driver who shows up at the track and demands to take the victory lap before the race is run, because he is absolutely certain he cannot possibly lose.
Some people are calling these eruptions of self-celebration evidence of desperation. I disagree.
I call them evidence that the insular, self-absorbed, self-defined “enlightened elite’” can’t hear the train when it’s two feet from them.
clear ether
eon
Whoever paid $1 for Newsweek overpaid for it. And now we have, St. Barack.
What an historic moment in history. Not only is HE the first Black President, HE is now the first Homosexual President.
I look forward to other historical moments in history: to the first Lesbian President, the First Bisexual President, the first Transgender President, the first Cross-Dressing President, the First Incestuous President, the First Bigamist President, the first Bestial President, etc.
All of this taking place in history, making history with historical moments.
When I saw the Newsweek cover I thought it was a joke. When I found out that it was for real, then I understood the announcements that Jay Carney made in the White House Press Room this morning. In support of his new gay initiative, President Obama wants to make Judy Garland’s birthday a national holiday. Also, he will only be giving interviews now to Ellen Degeneres, and he will start instituting “Bring your FATHERS to work days” at school. The president will also have all uniforms for Federal inmates designed by Georgio Armani, he will make sure that only Village People songs are played in all Federal lunch rooms, and that major Federal block grants will be made to the Speedo corporation. Barney Frank will be given the job of making sure the money is distributed properly. There will also be new advertisements made by the Center for Disease Control stating that Crisco Oil should only be used for cooking, AND NOTHING ELSE!
You know, I could keep doing this for hours, but I’ll spare you the pain. What this man won’t do for votes is stunning. To quote Ed Driscoll, “Yeesh.”
The cover has some truth in it. The president is gay.
Is it just me or does Obama’s complexion appear on that cover to be lighter than usual?
obama is lighter. how come? because, as a gay guy, he’s white, and as a black guy, he’s straight.
…but as either he’s crooked as a corkscrew.
I guess this means that it’s now official: James Buchanan and Abraham Lincoln weren’t gay anymore?
Lincoln was gay is a canard put around by a homosexual scholar. Public lodgings in his time were so scarce that travelers had to share a bed. Dickens had many such scenes and, more recently, so did Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
Is this where they begin leaking that he IS gay?
Bread and circuses for the masses. If the left had their way they would build a new colliseum and resume throwing Christians to the lions.
I guess Tina Brown is trying to one-up and out-shock Time magazine’s breastfeeding cover, Tina and the author of the Newsweek piece Andrew (“I am beefcake, although relatively unstable beefcake”) Sullivan.
What a combo.
Andrew Sullivan slobbered all over his draft copy, attempting virtually to deify The One. After four thousand years of Judaeo-Christian thought and we are strangely “on the side of history”, say the advocates? In time, posterity shall look upon this time and call us fools.
America’s First Gay President
We already knew Barack Hussein Obama was America’s first semi-black president. Now, according to Newsweek, he is apparently also our first gay president!
I don’t know whether the editors at the magazine were trying to out our commander-in-chief as a homosexual or whether Michelle Obama was aware all these years that her hubby had been living in a closet.
When the editors featured the president on the cover of their latest edition with his head crowned with a multi-colored halo, they may have been figuratively crowning him with the title of King of America’s gay community as an adjunct to his already well-earned titles of Nobel Peace Prize Winner, “the Anointed One,” “Master of the Universe,” etc.
Unless it’s related to the president’s sudden, truly-miraculous, election-year evolution from being an adversary of same-sex marriage to finally comprehending the moraI and legal rightness of men marrying other men and women wedding other women, I really don’t grasp the editorial rationale of declaring Obama “The First Gay President.”
Perhaps if I read the leftist rag that is Newsweek, I’d comprehend more.
I do know that the rainbow halo is a nice touch beautifully complementing all the other halos superimposed on his head by his mainstream media over the last four years. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=23839.)
America already elected a gay president.
I thought President James Buchanan, Jr. was considered a “nancy”?
Does that make Larry Sinclair the first lady?
Does Obama think, now that he’s evolved, that bisexuals can marry themselves? It
could cause a messy divorce.
Next cover “UFO lands in Central Park: How will it affect environment and the poor?” Look for it at you supermarket register.
You can understand the goofiness better once you realize that now, mags like Time and Newsweek have “evolved” to where they are just one step above, say, the National Enquirer and the tabloids that report Hollywood stars giving birth to aliens and the like…
Oh wait, sorry, I meant they are one step *below*…
Our first gay president? What about James Buchanan our 15th president? It almost certain he was gay. However, you will not hear to many gay rights advocates pointing him out, since as president he a disaster.
Sorry for the typo’s!
Re the Time cover–They have screwed that kid for when he gets to middle school and on. If he’s a good kid, he’ll get nothing but grief. If he is only mediocre in character, he may become more coarse and vulgar.
The father should think of shooting himself for allowing it.
There’s an upside. The eventual civil suit from this kid will certainly name Newsweek and its parent corporation, and the damages will be the nail in their coffin.
My sister married a gay guy,they had kids and then he decided to go back to his old lifestyle. So he left.I think it,s quite possible that Obama could be gay. If you really want to know just ask his body man Regi Love.
There’s always that “beard” thing that celeb gays do.
Too weird. He’s not gay. How can he be the first gay president when he’s not gay…
I presume the “gay” designation is supposed to refer to Obama’s “coming out” for gay marriage.
However, this reference, when coupled with longstanding suspicions about Obama actually being gay—see the claims by Larry Sinclair, see the reportage about Obama and Rahm Emanuel’s decade’s long membership in a gay bathhouse in Chicago, see the claims about the goings on in the Rev. Wright’s church—is bound to reignite and heighten suspicions.
“That’s the good news [gay marriage endorsement] for everybody in the country in terms of freedom and the long march towards liberalism in the country…. But there has always been another army out there that feeds on those who resent it. That army has been out there during Jim Crow. It was out there during abolition, during suffrage. There’s always an army that feeds on change and feeds against it — the wolves, and they’re being released right now and they’re probably giggling with delight at how they’re going to use this.” —Chris “Tingles” Matthews (MSNBC)05/09/2012
Larry Sinclair has finally been vindicated…!
I think James Buchanan may have been our first gay president.
Technically speaking, there is almost no doubt that Buchanan was gay. His long time live-in male companion was referred to as “Aunt Fancy” even in those days. But since he never personally confirmed it, historians have left the question open.
I assume that since he didn’t make a public proclamation and hold the first ever “Gay Pride” parade on Pennsylvania Avenue, the modern gay community hasn’t really adopted him as the first gay president. That, and probably, because he is almost universally accepted as the worst U. S. president in history. It doesn’t do much for the gay cause to say that the first gay president was a horrible one.
I’m shocked and disappointed they didn’t lead with: “We’re All Gay Now!”
Mr. President, I’ve worked with homosexuals. I know them. Homosexuals are friends of mine. And Mr. President, you’re no homosexual.
(even my gay friends are saying WTF to that cover)
So when I enthusiastically vote for Mitt Romney this fall I will be both a racist and a homophobe?
President Obama just signed his eviction notice to the White House. His largest single voting block was black Americans. They’re about 85% AGAINST gay marriage. They won’t turn on him and vote against him, but large numbers of them will stay home out of disgust. Without the 90% vote from blacks, Obama is toast.
As for white votes, this will only make it easier for them to vote for Romney, especially white voters in ‘flyover’ country.
Obama may pick up a lot of campaign cash from the gay community, but it won’t be enough to cover the cost in votes lost.
If Billy Bob was our first black president, it’s only fair that Baraak gets to be our first gay president.
I am inclined to take an august magazine as Newsweek at its word: Bam is gay, it says so right on the cover.