Wonkette
Who cares about the stupid New Yorker cover? It just makes the silly-sallies at the Obama campaign look like, uh, silly-sallies, and makes the New Yorker look terribly unfunny, which it is, except for that Anthony Lane who is a stitch. No, the New Yorker is a not a comedic but a Journalistic magazine — and it can also help you figure out your summer vacations plans! Since you all have no homes or money, consider spending your “staycation” this way: roll yourself in a barrel down the street to your nearest public library with free Internet access, go to NewYorker.com and spend an ENTIRE WEEK reading Ryan Lizza’s 15,000-word — that’s 15 internet pages! — opus on Barack Obama’s Chicago days. What fun! We heard that Barack Obama threatens to kick someone’s ass in the piece, and since we are Dumb Americans, we found this juicy bit and read nothing else.
So one time, in 1997, when Barack Obama was a magician’s apprentice in the Illinois State Senate, he disagreed with some schmo about a bill and got, as this schmo might imply, “uppity.”
Although the exchange was part of a longstanding tradition of hazing new legislators, the tensions between Hendon and Obama were real. On another occasion, Obama voted—a parliamentary error, Obama says—to block funding for a child-welfare facility in Hendon’s district. Hendon rose and criticized Obama for the vote. The two men became embroiled in a yelling match on the Senate floor that looked as if it might become physical; they were separated by Courtney Nottage, then the chief of staff for Emil Jones. Nottage led Obama off the floor to a room that legislators used to make telephone calls. “It looked like two men that were having a serious disagreement and they had walked up to one another really close,” Nottage told me. “I didn’t think anything good could come of that.”
Hendon told me, “He’s the one that got mad, because he said I embarrassed him on the Senate floor. That’s when he came over to my desk.” Before Nottage broke them up, Obama, who had learned to box from his Indonesian stepfather, supposedly told Hendon, “I’m going to kick your ass!” Hendon said, “He said something like that.” He added that more details will appear in a book that he’s written, entitled “Black Enough, White Enough: The Obama Dilemma.”
We have put that last part in bold to emphasize how reliable and unbiased a storyteller this Hendon fellow is.
Making It [New Yorker]
Archival footage from the Illinois State Legislature:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU0HFjDScCM
So the truth about the fistbump finally comes out - it’s an indonesian boxer death threat…much less mass-hysteria inducing, mmmmkay?
He hopes like a butterfly, stings like a bee!
Was this before or after he smoked crack and sucked the guy off?
Does this mean we might actually get a Hopey/WALNUTS throwdown during the debates? Of course, WALNUTS prefers the term “fisticuffs”.
The New Yorker should get savvy, and rename its online presence “TL;DR”.
Nobody engages in bipartisanship like those whose asses have been kicked.
Well, at least he wasn’t paddled in his undies by the “Old Bones”.
Gopherit v2.0: Gotta be after. Nothing makes you edgier than a crack comedown and a bellyful of hustler spooge.
He wears a mustache that curls down the sides of his upper lip in a permanent expression of melancholy. We met in a Houlihan’s, off the lobby of the building that houses the Obama campaign headquarters.
Jesus, who is writing this drivel? Joyce Carol Oates? Oh wait, they mention a Houlihan’s. Must be Sebastian Junger.
Somewhere Joe Lie just shit himself.
wait, the fight got broken up by a girl named courtney nottage? somehow, that’s hot.
The greatest part about this is that the GOP wouldn’t dare make something like that a campaign issue because their base would feel all tingly in their special parts at someone making ass-kicking threats.
This further proves the Senator’s hidden ties to the Wu Tang Clan, who I am told are a splinter group of Abu Saayaf.
Just call him “Madassas” Clay!
“Negotiation without preconditions” = Indonesian karate chop to the face.
Umm ya, I call bullshit. No brotha’ would ever say “I’m going to kick your ass.” I mean C’MON. Barry would of course say “I gonna pop a cap in ‘yo ass” or “You best shut your damn mouth before I do it for you.”
Not stereotypical enough. Therefore- Bullshit.
Combined with McCain’s thin-skinned hot temper, this fall has potential to be legendary.
Also, what’s with these Illinois state legislator names? “Courtney Nottage”? “Barack Obama”? WTF?
Ooooh, Hendon’s gonna get his ass kicked now.
A terrorist fist-jab to the New Yorker
Maybe it’s jsut me, but I read the New Yorker for the little cartoons. There’s no way I’m plowing through 15,000 words on any politician.
Al Franken, by the way, got a new challenger today by the name of Priscilla Lord. With Jesse jumping in tonight Minnesotans will have to choose between a puppet, a comedian, a clown, and an anachronism.
Cicada: Jerri Blank, is that you?
The New Yorker may be belligerent and borderline racist, but it’s only trying to live up to its name.
The Obama campaign quickly condemned the rendering. Spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement: “The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”
Actually… no… your average New Yorker reader has a pretty well developed sense of irony. Hell, I mostly just read the cartoons and had no trouble “getting” the cover.
The article is quite good. Barry “Lord Vetinari” Obama for Patrician!
Cicada: obama vs. mccain = Pedro vs. Don Zimmer
gjdodger: Or the Madrassa Mauler.
You’d never have heard John Kerry or Al Gore talking about kicking someone’s ass on the floor of the Senate.
The debate floor expletive-laden threats proves that Barry is at least qualified enough to be Vice-President.
sleepy: I don’t think so: http://www.hinshawculbertson.com …although others may disagree.
NotMyRealName: +1
ronaldpagan: Sumthin’ tells me there’s gonna be a new federal sewage treatment plant in this facility by like February 1, 2009.
I didn’t bother reading the article but the catoons are worse than Family Circus.
If I can depart from my usual smug, useless and often-failing cheap attempts at humor: Ugh Barry…. what are you doing? Commenting on satire does not tend to demonstrate you have the thickest skin, especially when the satire’s clear intent was not to goof on you, but to goof on all the mouth breathers out there. If and when you get elected, and I hope you do…. I hope you understand it’s going to get a lot more “tasteless and offensive” than this, and you gotta learn to accept it.
SMOKING MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH
anthony lane IS a stitch
What do you call a gay staycation?
sleepy: this whole story is my ‘frottage’ mnemonic.
I love how the other Senator is all like, yeah, Obama started the fight with me, and he was trying to provoke me, and he got in my face and threatened me, but to learn more about what really happened (wink, wink) read it in my forthcoming book where I try to make money off of Obama. Priceless.
jagorev: How could you forget the alderman, Toni Preckwinkle?