Where's Your Messiah Now?

The left have two opposing principles  — OK, they have boatloads of opposing principles, but for the sake of this post, we’re only focusing on two:

• God must be mocked at all opportunities.

• Obama is God.

In the late 19th century and much of the 20th century, artsy leftwingers operated under the theory of “Épater la bourgeoisie” — shock the bourgeoisie. Only now, as David Brooks noted at the dawn of the 21st century, leftists are the bourgeoisie. (Or the Ruling Class, to borrow from the title of Angelo M. Codevilla’s influential 2010 article and book.) Which is why the rest of us simply roll our eyes at all of the inevitable dunking of crucifixes and other religious icons in urine or dung. (Even if its free Book of the Month Club dung.)

But Gaia forfend you place one of the left’s religious icons in a vat of yellowy liquid in the same fashion that Andres Serrano infamously did back in 1987 with “Piss Christ” — unless you want to see liberals who otherwise believe in mocking religion scream, as Tom Wolfe would say, like weenies over an open fire:

Here’s the backstory:

Who knew Glenn Beck was an artiste? And like all real artists, Beck knows the big money is in dunking the messiah in a vat of urine. So edgy!

Well, as we learned again this week, President Obama is regarded by some vocal progressives as a Christlike figure, or as Jamie Foxx put it, “our lord and savior.” So Beck knew it was the perfect time to debut his latest “Piss Christ”-inspired work of art: “Obama in Pee Pee.”

Incidentally, note that the yellow fluid in question isn’t urine, but simply beer (hopefully hipster/Dennis Hopper favorite Pabst Blue Ribbon). Which seems doubly appropriate to have a bit of sport with a man known for his beer summits.

Jim Treacher quips, “Glenn Beck, urine trouble now.” But maybe not: Perhaps this is actually a case of Beck trying to insinuate himself back into the left’s good graces. After all, the New York Times commissioned Andres Serrano to contribute illustrations to one of the 1,728,128 articles the newspaper wrote on Abu Ghraib back in 2005. No doubt, they’ll be calling Beck for contributions any day now…

In any case, we consider the whole thing to be an example of yellow journalism at its finest.