The past few days I keep running into variations on a poster that compares Barack Obama with Vladimir Putin. There’ll be a picture of Putin doing something absurdly manly, juxtaposed with one of Obama doing something along the same lines but unbearably wimpy. The posters are pretty clearly designed to appeal to a certain sort of conservative, who likes to see himself as a man’s man.
That same conservative apparently doesn’t mind being made to look like an idiot if he really believes Vladimir Putin is above faking photo opportunities. Or maybe he believes that a Russian photographer just happened to encounter Putin, who just happened to be tramping shirtless and rifle-armed through the Siberian tundra ala Young Stallone. Just before suiting up and climbing into the cockpit of his very own F1 racer. No real reason, that’s just how you spend your time when you’re a really studly Russian dictator. Too bad our American dictator is such a wuss, huh?
Look, I’m no big fan of Barack Obama or any of his totalitarian friends. But I’ll be dipped in dog shit and roasted to a golden brown before I’ll build up a murderous animal like Vladimir Putin, just to make a nonentity like Obama look worse than he already does. That’s all I wanted to say.
Joel,I have to admit,I like those posters comparing the manly Putin with the wimpy Obama.
That doesn’t mean I believe that Putin goes around doing manly things all day-I know they were just photo ops.But doesn’t it say something that their guy wants to look like a man in photo ops,and our guy doesn’t mind looking like a fool every time?
Further,I know Putin is a ruthless ex KGB dictator,and I wouldn’t support him in an election or a war,but I don’t like our guy,and I don’t support him either.I like being an American,and I support our way of government,and our troops,but Obama is useless,and funny as F-troop when he’s trying to be taken seriously.
I could hug you for this, Joel.
Yeah, you’re right that they’re photo ops and perhaps quite cynical ones. But you’ve got to admit Putin looks manly when he’s … trying to look manly. If Obama tried that, he’d just look like Michael Dukakis in a tank.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Dukakis_tank_photograph
I suspect that Obama, whatever his other faults, is smart enough to avoid any Dukakis moments. And I don’t deny that Putin plays the manly man very well. But of course that’s the whole issue: Putin plays it well because, as his history proves, he actually is a vicious, cunning, bloody-handed tyrant. I just see no reason to praise him for it.
Some people prefer their despots pure, I guess.
There’s probably some psychiatric phenomenon at play;
Do people object less to being robbed bullied and murdered by a politician that looks and acts;
1) like a macho hard man
2) like a bitchy, petulant and camp Rupaul.
They’re both highly dangerous – even if the camp one might be the more spiteful and vindictive, but the idea of some individuals actually glorifying one of them…
The thought that entered my mind after I read this is: No amount of frosting can make a shit cake edible.
Don’t know if it speaks to the problem or not… but it is certainly true. 🙂
Mama,
maybe for thee and me.
unfortunately it seems all to many of the population are willing to eat political turd, as long as they think someone else is paying for the ketchup that gets used to hide its true nature.
Sure, Keith… but all any of them will get out of it is more shit – however it is flavored. Consider that I said the shit cake can never be made edible – nutritious… not that some won’t continue to eat it.
And, eventually, they’ll starve to death. Those who willingly take turds for food don’t deserve our pity, especially when they are too stupid to understand that _they_ are actually paying for it, no matter who else gets robbed and beaten in the meantime.
Personally, I don’t see Putin as any sort of manly man. He’s as much a phony as Obombo… My “manly men” heroes are serious about non-aggression, integrity and the voluntary society… whatever they happen to look like. 🙂
“I suspect that Obama, whatever his other faults, is smart enough to avoid any Dukakis moments. “
Umm… Obama, shotgun, Photoshop…
Valid point, Bear. Valid point.
I’m late to this convo but I think it’s also worth pointing out that there’s a discrepancy in the number of photo ops too. For all of its faults the US media is pretty good at capturing embarrassing pics and our government can’t do much to stop it. Russia? Not so much. The macho image is just as much a product of censorship as anything else.