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June 7, 2011

Mitt on the Great White Way

By Michael Shaw

Romney Mormon Newsweek cover

1. Looking to take Mitt out early? The line from the article that most speaks to the cover…:

“In a vacuum, some people will inevitably conclude that Mormonism is too weird for mainstream America.”

2. And then there’s the sub-head: “How the Outsider Faith Creates Winners.” Hmm, seems the conclusion in the article, though, is that successful Mormons play it down.

3. Did you all know, right off the bat, this photo-illustration was a take-off of the main promo for the Broadway show, “The Book of Mormon”? Yeah, I thought so. (…Guess that tells you something about the Newsweek-Beast hive mind.)

4. How badly do people want to lend this guy a personality?

5. Just to go with the secretive rituals and sacraments, I love how they cut off three fingers of Mitt’s left hand.

(Photo Illustration by Bela Borsodi; Source photos: Joan Marcus (The Book of Mormon), HBO-Courtesy of Everett Collection (Big Love).)

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  • tinwoman

    he looks like a born-again televangelist gettin’ the Spirit on in this picture, an image I loathe but one apparently beloved of most Americans.  So who knows, maybe it’ll work for him.

  • black dog barking

    Mitt’s Big Adventure.

    • http://www.bagnewsnotes.com Michael Shaw

      Ouch. Shades of Weiner, but Newsweek cover does seem to have a little “PeeWee’s great mis-adventure” in it, as well.

  • Felicia Goble

    This is despicable and just very strange.  Character assassination at its best.  Some people are so desperate…

  • http://twitter.com/marcsobel marcsobel

    imagine a Jew or a Catholic, or Irish with similar stereotypes.   This is religious bigotry.

    • Anonymous

      I agree with you–not out of any respect for the LDS–personally I believe Mormonism is 19th Century flapdoodle.  But it is impolite to hold a person’s religion up to public ridicule, no matter how silly you think it is.   On, the other hand, I understand that the Mormons actually like the Broadway show, so maybe they take this cover as no big deal.

  • http://twitter.com/marcsobel marcsobel

    imagine a Jew or a Catholic, or Irish with similar stereotypes.   This is religious bigotry.

  • Thirdeye pushpin

    but it looks like he know how to rock and roll in those underpants

  • http://twitter.com/weldonberger Weldon Berger

    One wonders: What’s the “Insider Faith?” Maybe it’s the one responsible for the Chrysler Miracle or the Syrian Hell promoted at the bottom of the cover. Or for Hotel Sex. God bless.

    One also wonders what would be the equivalent photo for a leading member of that other well-known white shirt and black tie-wearing outlet of the Abrahamic faiths, the Nation of Islam. Would NewsBeast feel comfortable going all South Park on Louis Farrakhan? 

  • http://www.bagnewsnotes.com Michael Shaw

    You know, I was just looking at variations of the illustration promoting the Broadway show and I can’t find one where the text/title covers the guy’s crotch.

    • http://profiles.google.com/ac.missias AC Missias

      well, those with a similar pose don’t have to deal with the double header and can just put the title up above, like where Newsweek is; the others have a folded-knee pose that don’t have a crotch, but the words are across the waist/hips.  so it fits.

      but no, count me as somebody who had never seen the promotional images for that play, even though I had read about the show itself, and had *no* idea what this could be (or how they could have gotten Mitt into dance shoes, etc.)  color me clueless, I guess, but I guess I’d have been left with the Crazy Preacher interpretation.

    • http://profiles.google.com/ac.missias AC Missias

      well, those with a similar pose don’t have to deal with the double header and can just put the title up above, like where Newsweek is; the others have a folded-knee pose that don’t have a crotch, but the words are across the waist/hips.  so it fits.

      but no, count me as somebody who had never seen the promotional images for that play, even though I had read about the show itself, and had *no* idea what this could be (or how they could have gotten Mitt into dance shoes, etc.)  color me clueless, I guess, but I guess I’d have been left with the Crazy Preacher interpretation.

  • James Haygood

    man that is a crappy comp – or is his head really that big? i mean that’s OJ big.

  • Seitan_Worshiper

    Seems like bad PhotoShop to me…

  • http://doran.pacifist.net/ Doran

    Wow. Weird (Newsweek, not LDS). I, naively, thought this was over in 2008. This is really odd, and none of that has to do with Mitt Romney. Just more evidence that when people talk about the decline of journalism, it has little to do with the Internet.

  • http://doran.pacifist.net/ Doran

    Wow. Weird (Newsweek, not LDS). I, naively, thought this was over in 2008. This is really odd, and none of that has to do with Mitt Romney. Just more evidence that when people talk about the decline of journalism, it has little to do with the Internet.

  • Anonymous

    The Romney campaign can’t be pleased with this image of their candidate as song-and-dance man, complete with spats.  He’s missing the straw hat and cane, but the missionary’s ID tag and The Book of Mormon are made to look like part of a Vaudeville act.  This isn’t a winner; this is a guy from a previous century.

    Romney needs to present himself as a person of substance.  His faith in the free market seems almost as naive as his belief in Joseph Smith and the Twelve Golden Tablets.  The latter is his own business, but does he get his economic ideas from wingnut W. Cleon Skousen?

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