Obama White House loved the magazine cover of him walking on water

[n2doc]

June 21, 2010 | 5:22 pm



Ever since the Obama White House got rid of that colonial era bust of Sir Winston Churchill on-loan from Great Britain, they've been on the lookout for new less offensive art.

Now we learn, thanks to Howard Kurtz on CNN, that Obama adviser David Axelrod made a call to the editor of the New Yorker magazine requesting a copy of the Feb. 1 cover of the magazine showing No. 44 walking on water. (No, not the newly-resurfaced Gulf of Mexico.)

The only stipulation: The cover art had to be autographed by artist Barry Blitt.

Here's the exchange between Kurtz and magazine editor David Remnick on "Reliable Sources":

REMNICK: Well, they wanted a signed version of the cover. And, you know, there were other covers maybe they didn't like as well. But I think they got over it. In fact, they got over it a lot faster than some other people.

more

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/06/obama-new-yorker-walk-on-water.html

[babylonsister]

1. Thanks, that's the first time I've seen that cover. It is pretty funny. nt

[hughee99]

2. What the hell is a "colonial era bust of Sir Winston Churchill"?

Is it a Churchill bust made hundreds of years before he was born? Was there another famous Sir Winston Churchill from the colonial era that I'm not aware of?

[BrklynLiberal]

4. Interesting point.

[n2doc]

5. story

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/barackobama/4623148/Barack-Obama-sends-bust-of-Winston-Churchill-on-its-way-back-to-Britain.html

Doesn't sound "colonial era" to me....

[frazzled]

6. The end of the British colonial era didn't begin until after WWII

India was decolonialized in 1947; Britain withdrew from its Mandate of Palestine in 1948; it granted independence to Malaya in 1957; and didn't give up Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) until 1980. There were many more, of course, but this is just to say it is totally possible to have a "colonial era bust of Sir Winston Churchill."

[hughee99]

7. So when an American newspaper has an article by an American writer

for an American audience and refers to it as the "Colonial Era" it's not the "colonial era" that we all currently refer to. Yes, if this were in an English paper, I can see where this might be accurate, but it's not, though maybe he lifted it from one. So it's not possible to have a colonial era bust of Sir Winston Churchill if you're referring to the "US colonial Era", and why would one refer to anyone else's colonial era in this setting?

That would be like referring to the Spanish civil war in an American paper as just the "Civil War".

On Edit, from n2doc's post above, even the British paper didn't refer to it as "colonial era".

[frazzled]

8. It seemed clear enough to me

When speaking of Churchill--he was Colonial Secretary earlier in his career (Secretary of State for the colonial territories of Britain). So when you identify a bust of the famous politician, it's not a WWII-era one but rather one from the 1920s, when he was in charge of the British Colonies. It refers to a period in Churchill's life and career. And after all, the statue is of HIM, not Sam Adams.

Let's not be so ethnocentric. The "colonial era" does not refer exclusively to pre-Revolutionary America. And we don't al, as you put it, "currently refer to" America's colonial period when we encounter the term "colonial era." Context is everything.

[hughee99]

12. So this is Churchill from the 1920's

Is that what you're saying?

Here's the bust (sorry for the other a-holes in the picture)...


Here's Churchill in 1923 (which would have been from about the time he was Colonial Secretary)
http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f?q=winston+Churchill+1920%27s&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwinston%2BChurchill%2B1920%2527s%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26tbs%3Disch:1&imgurl=920af9b4814bcc8f

You're really stretching here to assume that the writer didn't just F' it up. Assuming that the "colonial era" context relates first to the British colonial era (which by your own description covered his ENTIRE life), and then that it refers to Churchill's roughly 3 years he spent as Colonial Secretary. Has anyone (else) EVER referred to these three years as Churchill's "colonial era"?

[frazzled]

13. I didn't say it was from the 1920s--but that it represented Churchill's colonial interests

It was, in fact, made by the Jewish-American sculptor Jacob Epstein in 1946. As to why the term "colonial era" is pertinent to this story, consider why Obama gave it back to England (it had been on loan to GWB from Tony Blair after 9/11):

Several times in his long political career, Churchill was responsible for Britain's empire, which until 1963 included Kenya. It was his government which in 1952 declared the so-called Kenya Emergency - an attempt to quash a rebellion against colonial rule known as Mau Mau. For the next eight years, suspected rebels were routinely detained, tortured, hanged and shot. According to Caroline Elkins, the colonial soldiers killed between fifteen and twenty thousand Kenyans in combat, while up to one hundred thousand perished in the detention camps. One of those who endured torture in a British prison was Hussein Onyango Obama, US president's Kenyan grandfather.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/costi-londra/3215307692/

Now, see, there is a good reason for referring to the colonial reference with respect to a Churchill bust in a story about Obama and likenesses. So chill, and stop caring about this. Why don't you just say, 'thank you, I never knew that.'

[hughee99]

14. You haven't presented very much new information here.

I'm aware of Churchill and Britain's colonial history, and understand why Obama didn't want it, and while Britain's colonial history is relevant to the story, none of these things really make it a "colonial era" bust (as opposed to some other era's bust of Churchill).

Thank you for the condescension, though, that always makes me want to thank someone.

[Hekate]

9. It's just the writer being snarky and "clever"

[hughee99]

15. Too clever by half, IMHO. n/t

[Hekate]

19. Yes indeedy

[1monster]

21. That would probably refer to the British Colonial period. Remember, the British held

colonies all over the world. Hence the quote, "The sun never sets on the British Empire." The UK gave up control on most of its colonies and holdings in the years after WWII to 1997 (Hong Kong), but they still hold fourteen territoris outside of the British Islands.

The British Empire (Colonial Period): 1583 - 1997

[BrklynLiberal]

3. It is good to know that the President can laugh at himself..and appreciate

political humor even when it is aimed at him.
His predecessor..pres shit-for-brains, would have been laying on the floor, having a temper tantrum while kicking his feet, holding his breath, and sucking his thumb.

[Hekate]

10. I like that about Obama, too

:thumbsup:

[cascadiance]

11. At least Blitt didn't autograph the work with just his first name in big letters!

Might have been misinterpreted and illegal on DU! :)

[AtomicKitten]

16. Pres Obama has a charming self-deprecating sense of humor. nt

[Forkboy]

17. I read or heard something a few weeks back....

...that Obama hated praise of himself, and was uncomfortable with accepting the Nobel Peace Prize and the praise that followed. If that's true, I can see why he would like the particular cover.

[AtomicKitten]

18. Even he thought the honor was premature. nt

[lunatica]

20. I've had days like that

It can get worse too