Tag Archives: politics

Obama/Roosevelt

With President Obama evoking memories of presidential bad ass Teddy Roosevelt with his recent speech, are we really that far from seeing this happen in real life?

Unlike the actual photo of Roosevelt, the image above is digitally manipulated — BUT IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE! Obama should start taking more advice from Roosevelt’s playbook and we’d see him clinch the 2012 election. Here’s some of the things he could do:

- Form a band of roving toughs who fight crimes and right wrongs. Let a TV crew follow them around.
- Go on a safari, killing as many giant animals (preferably with his bare hands) as humanly possible, but showing a bit more compassion than Teddy, who would’ve killed all animals everywhere if he’d had his way. (For the record, shortly after his presidency ended, Teddy went on a big game expedition in Africa and trapped or killed almost 12,000 animals, including six rare white rhinos, which he probably took down by tackling them. The expedition also consumed more than 250 of these animals. Teddy no doubt polished off about half of those himself.)
- Win the Nobel Prize (oh, wait, he’s already done that).
- Travel through time (Roosevelt did this, trust me).
- Get shot by a maniac, but still give your speech, and then just leave the bullet in there for the rest of your life,  because “fuck you, gunman. I’ll die when I want.”
- Move the White House to Yellowstone Park.

This is by no means a definitive list, but it’s something the president could — and should — consider. But in case he doesn’t want to go that far with it, he can always just give this list to Joe Biden, or, barring that, Hilary Clinton. They could probably make it work too.

Jack Black is Paul Revere!

If you’ve been able to avoid Weiner-Gate this past week, you might’ve seen a little story about former vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin twisting the story of Paul Revere while on her patriotic bus tour of America. Here’s what she said:

[Revere] warned the British that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms, by ringing those bells and making sure as he was riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free.

You can click the link up there and read more about what she said and how she got it wrong.

Anyway, hearing about Paul Revere made me think about something I’d mocked up a few years ago, with Jack Black starring as Paul Revere. It’s really not that far-fetched on an idea, as A LOT of people have also noticed the resemblance between Mr. Black and the painting of Paul Revere most people are familiar with. I’m actually quite surprised this idea hasn’t yet happened. Anyway, here’s the picture, pretty much unchanged from its 2008 counterpart, with the exception of a new date and a slightly altered type treatment. Not great, but still funny, I think.