Gawker
The 60s are back! Thanks to the candidate for change! Attached, Barry Hussein's new TV ad, set to run right here in New York City—which is briefly important again, did you hear? Barack Obama knows America is sick of the same old ways of doing politics. They're tired of dynastic families remaining in Washington for generations. He knows also that everyone loves the Kennedys! At least, most of the Kennedys. The dead ones mostly, plus the ones we don't see too much of, like Caroline. It was so nice of those Kennedys to adopt Barry and make him one of the family! Just like Brad and Angelina! Or maybe he's infused with the spirit of JFK himself, like Suri Cruise! (The Times notes that the spot references the moon landing, which NIXON did, while leaving out the Bay of Pigs. Seriously? You thought they'd include the Bay of Pigs? Why not a drugged-up Marilyn Monroe getting double-teamed by the President and the Attorney General too!) The full ad is below, watch and pine for the black and white America you don't remember but it seemed pretty awesome.
Comments
where's her pony! i want to see more of her with a pony before i decide
Unfortunately, Don Draper was stuck on the Nixon account.
Can we repost the Barry Hussein spot under the "high wind advisory" banner?
So what's he going to do to being back the spirit of JFK, do a movie star and fuck up an invasion of Cuba?
I wish we could invade Cuba. It would be nice to have good rum again.
I just need to know if I should dust off Mom's pillbox hat, or if taking actual pills is in order.
Oh can't we have a snappier nick for Barack than Barry? You know, something that involves initials (K-Fed, D-Backs), those are fun. Or an amalgam (Brangelina, Bennifer)...snappy, gotta get snappier. Snap it up. Come on, it's the too dimensional tooth owwzands, people.
@marconi: B.O.?
@marconi:
Da Bomb?
um, okay. I clearly haven't quite mastered the art of learning to parse so forgive me for asking but... when you refer to him as "barry hussein" are you mocking assholes who call him that or are you just being an asshole yourself? serious question, either answer is fine.
@marconi: H-Bam!
@marconi: B'rackish Spice
Michelle does have a predilection for sleeveless dresses with pearls (Glamour called it "classic, understated chic") and she had that pink suit in South Carolina. And the flippy bob looks very familiar.
1960 was NOT in the 60s. Rather, 1960 was 1950s lite. It was the same old shit, only the Chief had long (for the time)hair and didn't wear a hat. The 60s didn't begin until someone told John Lennon he was the messiah.
Likewise, "The Graduate" was not a 60s movie, let alone an iconic one. "The Graduate" was a 50s movie that had languished in post for eight or nine years.
@marconi: The Canadian?
@Michael Jahn: I believe that was Yoko.
The one thing I remember most vividly about the 1960s is dad warning us about relying on Uncle Sam. Sure enough, when mom and dad went on that trip, Uncle Sam was real nice to us at first. But then he started drinking too much and bringing home strange women. Later, he grew a beard, died his hair white and started dressing up in a red, white and blue tuxedo with a matching top hat, running around and pointing his finger at us, yelling, "I want you to join the Army!"
We laughed and were like, "Yeah, right. Whatever, Uncle Sam."
Wait, no, actually that might just be a poster I saw once.
@marconi: Bo-bama!
@Screen Name: I had a hallucination like that once.
The 60s began the day the first beatnik hipster realized he didn't have to read books to sleep with Vassar girls. So, like, November 12, 1949.
So is this Gawker's official statement of suppport for Hillary the Killery from Manillery? Cuz I, for one, applaud.
Forget Anna Nicole... Britney is obvs this generation's Marilyn. She's broken up because Barak won't return her phone calls.
@yourfriendandneighbor: Roger that
wouldn't barry be dead by now if it was 1960?
Bak-o, Backie-O, Bamack, Baram, Bobo (for the nuke power crowd)...hell with it, I concede and throw my delegates to enviousjuno, but sans the dots and add a dash, so as to avoid the ad hominum.
@lalalina: Wasn't that an Irwin Shaw story?
Jeebus. More than half of the country doesn't remember Vietnam. Barry could have put Robert Taft on the screen and it would be equally relevant to his target audience.
And because I do remember the Kennedy presidency, I got a nagging question. What the fuck was so great about it beyond the go-to-the-moon thing? He forgot to order air cover for the Bay of Pigs because he was busy getting a hummer in the Oval or something. He gets credit for bringing in Bobby as AG but he didn't really take off until JFK was long dead. And the whole Camelot thing -- total bullshit. Nothing magical happened. Blacks were still being lynched in the South, women were told to stay home and bake cookies as God intended, everyone toed the social line, and pretty much the entire country was damn dull.
@lalalina: No, he would never had held elective office. He'd be assistant professor of something or another. If this were 1968 he'd be dead by June.
@Truculent: Amen, brother.
@Truculent: I'll tell you what was so great about it. And it's the same reason some dimwits are voting for Barry--He's so cuuuuuute!
@Truculent: Jackie?
@Badupbomp: and her leopard skin pillbox hat.
@Truculent: After two terms of Dwight and Mamie, I guess anything TV-friendly looked like the future. But you're so right: the hype outstripped anything he delivered.
@Badupbomp: Not terribly exciting in real life, besides the nice clothes. She was routinely mocked in what passed for comedy back then. It all looks much nicer in retrospect. The press corps all knew about JFK hanging out with Sam Giancana and the other mob guys. They knew his dad was dirty, and they knew about Marilyn Monroe popping in and out of the WH day and night. Nary a word made it into the media because the press corps lived on handouts (sounds weirdly familiar) and took it upon themselves to protect the reputation of the president. We came within hours of an all-out nuclear war with the Soviet Union, and it looked like it would actually happen. Trust me, when you see your neighbors digging bomb shelters, it sure as shit ain't morning in Camelot.
The fading generation of news hacks now populating the airwaves and newsprint bought into this sanitized version of reality, which is why JFK is worshipped like Ghandi to this day. Eisenhower was a hero to the entire world. He won the blinking Second World War and presided over the largest and most prosperous economic expansion in history. You don't see a lot of news people invoking the spirit of Ike these days because, with the exception of Mike Wallace and Andy Rooney, those guys are dead and/or senile. The JFK story is fun and magical and it brings warm memories of those happy, peaceful days gone by which, by the way, never happened.
@the supergoddess: The former, I think. Wonkette started the fun with this post way back in January 07, and proceeded to run with "barry" for all their obama coverage. Other, less hilarious pundits have hammered home the "Hussein" part. They must be mocked.
I could never understand why JFK was worshipped by fellow Americans. One thing that Barack (to the Future), will have in common with JFK is probably getting assasinated by the CIA. Yes, I said it.
@Cheap Shot: JFK is one of the most overrated presidents in the history of the country, and he created what is now (perhaps unfairly) referred to as the "Kurt Cobain Paradigm." Die young and in your supposed prime, and your legacy grows out of proportion to your actual accomplishments.
Barack Obama is a good guy, and a smart guy, and even an inspirational guy. But he's got no business running this country (nor does any Democrat, pretty much ever).
[www.youtube.com]
Got no business, eh?
Hard to continue ones accomplishments after your brains are blown out.
Accept, demonstrably, in your case, Furious.
Or mine. "Except."
@Truculent: What did you do to celebrate the Cuban Missile Crisis? I organized an end-of-the-world party in the college parking lot. I had a stash in my '46 Ford coupe, which you may recall had a trunk big enough to hold Sardi's bar. We cracked a case and drank it while listening to radio accounts of the Russian missile-bearing ships approaching the U.S. Navy blockade and looking toward NYC waiting to see the fireball and wondering if we would be fried or merely sauteed.
@the supergoddess: "Barry Hussein" is (in this case a parody of? I can't tell) the Fox-i-fication of political discourse, now spread all around our (profoundly narrow and yet still profoundly shallow) political spectrum. Hit the Hussein hard enough, and with enough repetition, and all the rubes who read the "do we really want a mooslem in the White House?" email chain-fuck letter will get an extra tick off in their head and remember not to vote for "the mooslem terr'rist guy" come election day." Should the grand mal seizure that is Hillary Clinton's ego-tastic lust for power ever allow her to concede the nomination to someone not herself (like Obama), it is for sure the only way Republicans will refer to him from June through November. Hell, they'll probably just start calling him Saddam.
Problem is, if you take away Obama (and forget Mitt; Republicans are going to run Bob Dole, I mean John McCain. Again.), I'm not sure what possible difference I'm supposed to see between the two pro-war senators left. I suppose I should care that one is for and the other against a woman's right to a safe and legal abortion, but that was already decided in 2004. Choice lost.
@Dusty in the Wind: Accomplishments? Kennedy's record was basically tons of blunders and one "good job" on the CMC -- which basically amounted to calling Russia's bluff. Big deal on that one. His abysmal record aside from that incident is nothing worth celebrating.
@Furious_George: So true! Why should a "good, smart, inspirational guy" be allowed to run this country after Bush has proven that only the Republicans hold the secret to providing us with fiscal responsibility, global peace & goodwill, and healthy American children? No Democrat, ever, has come close.
Oh except when the Dems were Confederates, obvs!
@Truculent: We also shit all over Ike's legacy as a people by completely ignoring his parting words to us, which were, really, his only accomplishment as a politician. Oh well, he tried.
@berryline: Yeah, let's stick a Democrat in office, hike up taxes on everyone making over $90,000 (because, gosh, that's so INSANELY RICH by today's standards!), and singlehandedly fuck the middle class up the ass in ways no one can possibly imagine. While we're at it, let's hand over the future of global hegemony to China through military weakness, inability to make tough decisions, and imposition of crippling "green" taxes and regulations on American industry!
As long as it makes someone's bleeding heart feel good, right? As long as someone's inspired, right?
Democrats are the party of misplaced ideals, good intentions gone horribly wrong, and weakness.
@Mediahohoho:
Right - he was the first to use the phrase "military-industrial complex," and he tried to warn of the dangers it represented.
@berryline: By the way, Bush Jr. doesn't count. That guy's an abomination. Then again, so was Bill Clinton, who basically sold all our military secrets to China for a pittance.
@meerkat: His original draft called it the "military-industrial- congressional" complex, but his advisers bullied him into taking out "congressional." Why We Fight has much of the speech and background.
@Furious_George: Yes, Bush Jr. counts because he represents everything the GOP has been courting over the last 30 years--own it.
@Furious_George:
But do you share in the mindless adulation so many conservatives have for Reagan?
@Mediahohoho: @Mediahohoho:
Yeah, that's good - the Republicans are the good guys, except for the ones who are fuck-ups, and they don't count.
@meerkat: That must be a pretty long list, but considering that everyone of any importance in Bush's administration has been hanging around since Nixon, I'm really not sure how this moment doesn't represent the apotheosis of the Grand Old Party in the modern era, from Elliott Abrams, veteran of Iran-Contra and one of the engineers for Iran: The Adventure Next Door, through Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell, et al, this is the fruition of the Reagan revolution. Or the roosters come home to roost, depending on your perspective on it all.
@Michael Jahn: I was 7 at the time so there wasn't much drinking involved. However, I did hide under my desk with my hands over my head facing away from the windows. So I got that going for me anyway
@Furious_George: Yes, let's!
$90,000 a year IS insanely rich by today's standards. A strong military will protect us from a strong yen, ha ha!
Wait, which one of us is being sarcastic? I assume you were reaching for some kind of amazing surreal deadpan when you said GWB "doesn't count?"
@meerkat: I don't know if adulation for easily the best post-WWII president in the country's history is "mindless." Well-placed is more like it.
@Truculent: agreed. JFK was too lillylivered to really make a statement on Civil Rights. LBJ did that. Watching a documentary makes me firmly believe that had he lived, RFK would've blown his brother out the water.
however, i will like to add that JFK and Jackie had one good looking family.
@berryline: I'm saying GWB doesn't count in the same way that I'll grant you Jimmy Carter. Both equally disastrous presidencies that I think both parties would just as soon forget.
@berryline: I'm getting a definite "electro-theremine" vibe here.
@berryline: yuan. whatever.
@marconi: Barackstar.