Obama 'Joker' Artist a Palestinian Arab from Chicago

Is this guy a DUer? He's a Kucinich supporter!

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2009/08/obama-joker-artist.html

When cryptic posters portraying President Obama as the Joker from "Batman" began popping up around Los Angeles and other cities, the question many asked was, Who is behind the image?

Was it an ultra-conservative grassroots group or a disgruntled street artist going against the grain?

Nope, it turns out, just a 20-year-old college student from Chicago.

Bored during his winter school break, Firas Alkhateeb, a senior history major at the University of Illinois, crafted the picture of Obama with the recognizable clown makeup using Adobe's Photoshop software.

Alkhateeb had been tinkering with the program to improve the looks of photos he had taken on his clunky Kodak camera. The Joker project was his grandest undertaking yet. Using a tutorial he'd found online about how to "Jokerize" portraits, he downloaded the October 23 Time Magazine cover of Obama and began digitally painting over it.

Four or five hours later, he happily had his product.

On Jan. 18, Alkhateeb uploaded the image to photo-sharing site Flickr (shown at right). Over the next two months, he amassed just a couple thousand hits, he said.

Then the counter exploded after a still-anonymous rogue famously found his image, digitally removed the references to Time Magazine, captioned the picture with the word "socialism" and hung printed copies around L.A., making headlines.

--snip--

"After Obama was elected, you had all of these people who basically saw him as the second coming of Christ," Alkhateeb said. "From my perspective, there wasn't much substance to him."

"I abstained from voting in November," he wrote in an e-mail. "Living in Illinois, my vote means close to nothing as there was no chance Obama would not win the state." If he had to choose a politician to support, Alkhateeb said, it would be Ohio Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a556b3b4970c-pi

and the original

I don't buy into Alkhateeb's point of view, but it's legit comment. So much for all the k-k-krazy conspiracy theories.

He sounds like half of the disgruntled posts I read here daily. And a DK supporter. I bet he listens to Malloy!

Damn, in just one day, I've seen Dennis Kucinich, Mike Malloy, Thom Hartmann, Rachel Maddow, and Howard Dean bashed by the Pom Pom squad. It's really sickening to see so many attacks on good Democrats.

I love the guy!

Malloy? Entertaining at times. Nothing against him. A good listen in the wee hours of the night.

:shrug:

I just think it's pretty ironic that the guy who created the image used for the current idiotic conservative rallying poster is a DK liberal. Funny, no?

Socialism as well, and he is proud of that? What a tool!

Not quite sure how proud of it he is. Seems a bit bemused and conflicted, though he does seem happy to claim credit for it.

Dunno, but he claims to be a disgruntled Kucinich liberal.

he rips on the "SOCIALISM" poster...

Regardless, Alkhateeb does agree with the Obama "Hope" artist about "socialism" being the wrong caption for the Joker image. "It really doesn't make any sense to me at all," he said. "To accuse him of being a socialist is really ... immature. First of all, who said being a socialist is evil?"

Wouldn't make sense that someone who thought Obama was too far to the right, would call him a "Socialist".

Kind of reminds me of how hilarious it is when conservative sports fans get down to Rock and Roll pt. 2 by Gary Glitter. They have no idea the freak who wrote and performed the song. They would be horrified!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xd44PWZGzg

Hey!
:rofl:

The Joker is not a socialist, more like an anarchist. If anything, Batman is the socialist.

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Obama-Joker-Posters-Get-It-Wrong-Batman-Is-A-Socialist-14207.html

Their political message is clear, but I guess they missed the part of The Dark Knight where the Joker is an anarchist. He has more in common with Rush Limbaugh than he does Barack Obama. He’s not just opposed to big government, he’s opposed to all government. If there’s a socialist figure anywhere in The Dark Knight it’s Batman, who champions the cause of the people and believes in a society where everyone works together for the common good. I mean he’s basically Leon Trotsky in a cape and cowl. Someone scribble some bat ears on those posters. Let’s be accurate about this.