Friday, June 06, 2008

Separated at Birth: Barack Obama & Alfred E. Neuman

















My inspiration for this particular S.A.B. came from an October 2006 Maureen Dowd column. In the latter part of her piece, the New York Times columnist had the following insights regarding Barack Obama and his potential candidacy for President (emphasis mine):


His appeal combines the political ability — alien to the Bush administration — to see something from your opponent’s point of view with the cool detachment of a J.F.K. He’s intriguingly imperfect: His ears stick out, he smokes, and he’s written about wrestling with pot, booze and “maybe a little blow” as a young man.



Seven weeks later, upon finishing a speech in New Hampshire, Obama approached Dowd regarding the remarks in her column. "I just want to put you on notice,” Obama said. “I was teased relentlessly when I was a kid about my big ears."

Of everything Dowd wrote in that paragraph, it was the remark about the ears that rankled him most.

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