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McNaughton’s Group  

Special thanks to the eagle eyes at Wonkette, who’ve spotted a big one.

Extraordinarily cheezeball artist Jon McNaughton has brought forth a gathering of greats, as the ghosts of presidents past hover around sullen, stand-offish looking Barack Obama, variously annoyed or aghast at his literal TRAMPLING ON THE CONSTITUTION!

McNaughton is the kind of crank who rambles along in incoherent Founderspeak for numbered paragraphs, passive aggressively concluding:

“The information is historical. If it is not familiar to you – Google it.“

Cramming all these figures into the frame seems to have skewed McNaughton’s perspective.  Small but perfectly formed James Madison is so upset at Obama’s boot-heel to our liberties that he’s bent over pleading, but appears to be almost Obama’s height.   The Forgotten Man is a giant seated on a toy town bench. Such is the occasion that Franklin Roosevelt walks.

McNaughton’s painting doesn’t leave much to chance, featuring ominous clouds, flags at half staff, and an accompanying video lush with  piano chords of doom.

Republican Tinkerbell

The thoughtful press peepers at Media Matters For America [just typing it gives a tingle!] have detected a pattern in Republican affairs:  free-floating New Reagan naming, often not tied to any visible speaking skill or charisma.

Christie On A Stick! 

They run down the usual names named, your Palins, Rubios and the like, but several of the reborn seem to have escaped their view.

Lest we forget, some have imagined the mantel falling on Rubio’s leathery opponent, Charlie Crist.  Before his auditioning to become the Robert Byrd of the desert wastelands,  John McCain was considered amoung the Reagan Undead. Until he stumbled into a cracker history morass Virginia Governor Robert F. “Bob” McDonnell was seen, at least in Pat Robertson’s alternative universe, as Reaganesque. And South Korean hard man President Lee Myung-bak was Reagan walking until it was discovered voters didn’t thrill to the prospect of confrontation with the North.

But our favorite New Reagan of Today lives in South Africa:

  step forward President Zuma!

Rally For Our View  
No doubt we can now look forward to the many conservative stalwarts revising and extending their complaints at Obama’s grandiose event staging.

History didn’t deter them at the time, but we Americans are an optimistic people.

The Awesome Power Of Social Media® 

 The Washington Post reports another exciting example of our betters communicating with us via the Twitter, fostering new vistas of openness and communication.

The Twit in question is beloved Jordanian Queen Rania, who like Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan types from on high to her million plus  followers.

Unfortunately her husband the King has his own ideas about transparency.

The Post says magic Kingdom is implementing laws regulating Internet speech which include forced labor to punish infractions. This has not prevented the Queen from emitting on such controversial topics as education [for it!] and micro-finance [splendid idea].

Her Huffington Post column is comparatively hard edged, with the Palestinian descended monarch actually flirting with criticising Israel.

Your fascinating future of Social Media beacons!

Nigeria’s President Reverts To Type 

 

Social Times, “Your Social Media Source,” has discovered a new internet hero, the leader of a nation who engages with his public not just at election time, but online.  Meet Goodluck Jonathan, President of Nigeria and Facebook aficionado.

Jonathan is West Africa’s Mohamed Nasheed,  a man we’ve never heard of  doing ostensibly good things in a country we don’t care about, helped by the magic of the Internet.

  The Nigerian President inherited office when his predecessor died, and his version of a listening tour includes writing and reading posts, by someone if not him.  Social Times says “Goodluck Jonathan shows The World How How Politicians Should Use Facebook,” citing his vast following and the fount of commentary unleashed by his musings.

And it’s all for the children:

“Jonathan’s Facebook account is not part of a political campaign or a marketing strategy. It is not simply there so that his government can say they “understand social media and new technology”. He is using Facebook as a tool to engage in a two-way conversation with his citizens, hearing their concerns and raising his own. This increases transparency and accountability, while showing the world that his government is active and concerned about its citizens.“

  Social Times‘s example of Jonathan’s minding the little people is his reversing his own decision barring Nigeria’s soccer team from play after their poor World Cup showing, after the keyboard army mobilized. That FIFA threatened to ban any Nigerian team from any play anywhere apparently didn’t figure in.

  And all the transparency Jonathan has emitted on Facebook hasn’t kept his supporters from silencing critics the old fashioned way, by shutting down their political rallies.