Geore W. Bush

Naturally all Bush's folks are the Evil Characters

In a transparently unhinged and partisan hit job against several Bush administration officials, Newsweek thought it would be amusing to compare the Bush era and the Obama era by analogizing them with Star Wars and Star Trek respectively. Naturally Newsweek's Bush Derangement Syndrome was given full throated expression -- phasers set to kill not to stun -- as the Bush administration officials were noted as representing one or the other of the evil Star Wars characters while all the Obama officials were compared to the good guys in Star Trek. What we get is the typical Old Media talking point: Bush evil/ Obama good.

Out of the nine Star Wars characters used on the SW side to explain the Bush era, only five are conceivably a good guy. The rest are all the SW bad guys. But even that isn't as it would seem on its face. It's so bad that even when Newsweek uses any of the ostensible good guy characters from Star Wars, their caption tends to undercut the good nature of the character when coupled with a Bush official. For instance, we all know that the happy and fun character of C-3PO is a beloved Star Wars character, but in Newsweek's hands the venerable, loyal robot becomes former Bush Spokesman Ari Fleischer. Why is C-3PO like Fleisher? Why because he's "obsequious" and "glabrous," of course. Hardly flattering.

It gets worse. On the Star Trek side only one of the nine Star Trek characters used for Obama era figures is a Star Trek bad guy. Evil Klingon Commander Kor becomes... wait for it... Rush Limbaugh! That's right, the only bad guy on Newsweek's Obama side is Limbaugh. Every other Obama era official is compared to a Star Trek good guy and lionized in the caption.