While you–a normal, sane human being–checked out of politics for the weekend, controversy raged across the land. There were, of course, reports that John McCain spent seven months traveling on his wife’s corporate jet at reduced rates–despite his support for legislation requiring presidential candidates to pay the actual costs of corporate flying. But that’s not the fracas we’re referring to. And, lest we forget, Barack Obama dipped a toe in the proverbial hot water when the Los Angeles Times revealed that the then-Illinois lawmaker helped a donor receive a state grant. Sadly, though, our minds are elsewhere.
Namely, magazine covers.
On Friday, some disreputable rag named Time (anybody? anybody?) released a cover showing the right half of Obama’s face aligned with the left half of Hillary Clinton’s face. Immediately, the liberal contrarians at The New Republic cried plagiarism. “We don’t want to say that this week’s cover of Time is a rip-off of our HillarAck cover that came out last month, but–oh, whatever–they totally ripped us off!” they wrote. “All the way on down to the cover line, too: ‘There Can Only Be One’ vs. ‘We Have To Choose One.’” Indeed, at first glance, the covers looked pretty similar (even if the Hillbama creature was way creepier, like some chimera ripped, mid-morph, from Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” video):
The only problem: apparently the wonks at TNR don’t watch much basketball–or, you know, read much Time. If they did, they would’ve noticed that the mag’s cover was an homage to the current NBA playoffs advertisements, and that editor Rick Stengel noted as much on his magazine’s index page.
Ah, Newsweek: Opt for the Original. Oh, wait. Maybe that’s Levi’s I was thinking of.
P.S. Is it just me, or does Hillbama kind of resemble Rashida Jones from “The Office”?
Now I’m more confused/disturbed than ever.
