So, did Aurora edu-crats reveal their liberal agenda when they suspended fifth-grader Daxx Dalton last week for wearing an “Obama is a terrorist’s best friend” T-shirt? Or are school administrators and the offending tyke victims of a conniving right-wing parent and corporate media outlets playing the culture-war card before the election?
Okay, you be Olbermann, I’ll be O’Reilly. First one to shout wins. Ready, GO!
But, really, what we need is some kind of test to see if the deciders over at Aurora Frontier K-8 truly put the kibosh on the T-shirt because they felt it was “disruptive” and not simply because it was aimed at a Democrat. Would these officials take the same action against a shirt bashing the Republican nominee?
First, we need a message that is just as over-the-top and incendiary about McCain. For this, we turn to the Thunderdome, known to many as the blogosphere, where the latest outrages of the moment – or was that last week? – are the pictures of John McCain that photographer Jill Greenburg distorted to make him look evil, grotesque, adulterous and ridiculous.
The big problem? Greenberg got access to McCain in a photo shoot for the cover of Atlantic Monthly. When the editors of the venerable magazine discovered that Greenburg posted the doctored photos on her website and bragged about the trick, they responded with disgust and indignation. Not that the denouncement has prevented them from feeling the wrath of conservative critics, who point to Greenberg’s previous work making toddlers cry for use in anti-Bush posters.
So, for the purposes of our experiment, what better image than that of a snarling, devilish McCain with the phrase “I AM A BLOODTHIRSTY WARMONGER”?
Next step: Slap the shirt on a pre-teen and send him to the same Aurora school. If administrators respond to scary McCain in the same way they did to scary Obama, then we know they’re staying neutral in the culture wars. If the student suddenly gets an ‘A’ in Civics? Then, my friends, the terrorists have already won.
Best of all, it will be educational. This is how politics really work in America, kiddies. Now put on your T-shirts and shut up. -- Jared Jacang Maher
