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As Obama closes in on the Oval Office, a theme that has already been absorbed into the media mind is the McCain campaign’s “messiah” attack (launched by Team McCain’s “The One” ad[/u). While raising anxieties about a President Obama’s exercise of power, framing Obama as an aspiring deity also works like a red cape in the face of the Christian right by flaunting the notion Obama somehow sees himself as a God, God himself, or, the son of God.

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Sometimes magazine publishers and their photo-illustrators are too clever by half. I appreciate the desire to visually punctuate Obama’s support for gay marriage (even if he was pushed on by him his “team of rivals”). I also get the pressure to sell magazines (and maybe try to one-up TIME for its viral breastfeeding cover last week). Still, crowning Obama the “Gay Messiah,” as Bag contributor Karrin Anderson writes:

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“…not only plays on stereotypes of him as self-righteous and messianic, but actually runs counter to the spirit of Andrew Sullivan’s article. (Sullivan, though Catholic, has always heralded secularism in politics.)”

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Even if inadvertent, this illustration picks up an Obama attack meme which was played pretty hard in 2008. In light of that history, and because the image is so freighted religiously, I can just imagine someone as astute about imagery and ideology as Karl Rove taking one look, sitting back smugly, and uttering: “holier than thou.” http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/2012/05/not-the-one-again-our-take-on-the-
newsweek-obama-gay-messiah-cover/ I know where the "Obama as messiah" campaign came from, which is why the right has so latched onto it and persevered with it, despite any evidence to the contrary--which of course explains why YOU've latched onto it and keep bringing up one remark from 2009 (it IS 2012, you know).

Now I understand all that, it's no longer interesting. Newsweek is off the rails. Thomas is a nutbag with some kind of Obama complex. You are a walking parrot of right-wing idiocy trapped in an apparently increasingly desperate need to both get attention and find something...ANYTHING...to put anyone and anyTHING on the left down. I'll look for threads with more substance now, and leave you to your imaginings.

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Are you kidding me? I get that Andrew Sullivan is a man with an agenda and I completely support his right to make his opinions heard. I also understand that Newsweek – like any other publication – is in business to make a profit and that frequently involves pushing the envelope in terms of catching the public’s attention. But at what point is too much simply too much? 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.

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