Newsweek Meets Muggeridge’s Law
Tom Wolfe on “Muggeridge’s Law:”
While Malcolm Muggeridge was the editor of Punch, it was announced that Khrushchev and Bulganin were coming to England. Muggeridge hit upon the idea of a mock itinerary, a lineup of the most ludicrous places the two paunchy pear-shaped little Soviet leaders could possibly be paraded through during the solemn process of a state visit. Shortly before press time, half the feature had to be scrapped. It coincided exactly with the official itinerary, just released, prompting Muggeridge to observe: We live in an age in which it is no longer possible to be funny. There is nothing you can imagine, no matter how ludicrous, that will not promptly be enacted before your very eyes, probably by someone well known.
– From Wolfe’s “Stalking the Billion-Footed Beast: A literary manifesto for the new social novel,” Harpers, November, 1989.
In the illustration above, the Newsweek cover on the left was mocked-up by the Photoshop artists at National Review to accompany a 2009 satire by Rob Long titled, “A Conversation from Heaven,” regarding what Bernard Goldberg might call Newsweek’s “Slobbering Love Affair” between themselves and Mr. Obama. (Although given The Won’s Hindenburg-sized ego and Titanic-sized aloofness, presumably the affair is largely unrequited.)
On the right, is the real thing. Of course, as Newsbusters notes today, it’s merely replaying former Newsweek editor Evan Thomas’s assertion in 2009 that “In a way, Obama’s standing above the country, above — above the world. He’s sort of God.”
L. Ron Hubbard, call your office.
Related: William A. Jacobson of the Legal Insurrection blog on Obama and the “Cult of Personality.”
There is a story/gossip among science fiction authors. It is said that some years ago there was a Scientology gathering and a science fiction convention in the same hotel. The Scientologists viewed this as a chance at winning souls (or whatever it is they do) and ran around preaching to the fans, until they found a particularly cranky old fan, who looked at the young woman talking to him and said, “Young lady, I knew L. Ron Hubbard when he was a SMALL time crook.”
I’m not sure this ever happened, but one sort of feels the need to tell Newsweek “Dear Newsweek, we knew Obama when he at least bothered to PRETEND.”
Several months before the 2008 election our Republican household began to receive a free and unsolicited subscription to Newsweek with all its hagiographic covers and articles on the Obamas.
If my hunch of an ulterior motive was right, I wondered who was behind the effort. Was it a Newsweek promotion that doubled as exposure for their guy or did the Obama campaign or DNC approach Newsweek and offer to subsidize the subscriptions?
Curious if any other Ed Driscoll or PJ Media readers experienced the same Newsweek “full court press.”
No free Newsweek subscription for me, alas. But more likely, at least in this case, Newsweek’s goal was to pad their numbers to make the magazine more appealing for potential advertisers, not an attempt to further the Cult of Obama.
We get unsolicited mags several times a week. Fine with me if they want to waste the postage but the most fun comes when we get the invoice for a mag we never ordered. Oddly enough, we never get dunning notices.
They’re padding their subscriber lists – aka lying. It boosts their ad revenue.
Sarah,
Actually, Gardner Dozois told that very story at this year’s Worldcon, and said that the person saying that was L. Sprague De Camp.
That sounds right — although I was guessing Pournelle, Niven, or Harlan Ellison.
Actually the best part is the “How Women will save Europe” bit. Only a really clever satirist includes that level of detail.
Once upon a time, the Emperor got new clothes….. Oh, well, that gave the ending away.
He’s always struck me as the type of savior that demanded a sacrifice as opposed to making one but I’m sure being an Obama atheist has somehow skewed my viewpoint.
I don’t believe Obama is an atheist. I think the bloody narcissist believes he IS the Second Coming.
Little doubt that online “Newsweak” will soon go the way of the print edition.
Or, as Juvenal said, “It is hard not to write Satire.”
Second time in as many days that I’m reminded of a story. It’s a retelling of an old, segregationist story. Someone remarked that southern whites were fine with standing with blacks, just that they wouldn’t sit with them, intending that remark as a joke. After Brown vs. Board of Education, and public libraries were integrated, some southern public libraries took out their chairs.
Parody has always been playing catch up to reality.
The term “islam” means “surrender” or “submission” in some translations. The idea of it is that one loses all freedom to get closer to Allah. In that context, jihad is not only meaningful, it is the logical conclusion.
This is no different for the media. They have surrendered their legitimacy to Obama, and taken on the jihad as their sole duty, even to the point of self-destruction. There are many Americans, including all of them on the Newsweek staffs, who don’t see this a parody at all, they see this as the logical conclusion of their religion, a bible written by man, but in glory to their god.
Have no fear, world! Barack Hussein Obama (aka Lord God King Obama) will be sworn in shortly and start addressing all the problems left by the idiot that’s been in charge for the past four years.
I demand the separation of church and state: the magnificent Zero, the Lightworker, the Second Coming, must resign immediately, and all his followers must quit their government jobs.
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?