The cover of Mad #513, on sale Real Soon Now:

Bonus points if you can explain the title.

(The Idiotical.com is the Mad blog.)

This question came into TTAC’s Piston Slap department:

I have the misfortune of working with a bunch of aspiring Yuppies. You know the types. The ones who believe that all American car companies make crap and the only true luxury cars come from Germany and Japan. Never mind the $1300 maintenance charge on their Audi or the fact that the Lexus ES is about as exciting as wilted corn flakes.

Long story short, I am sick and tired of hearing their crap. I want to buy the type of American car that will take these pompous, sniveling wussy boys and blow their stuck-upityness right out of their ass.

Actually, there’s a second rung: they spurn the Japanese entirely in favor of the products of der Vaterland. And if they had to judge by the ES, a Camry — not even an Avalon — oversprayed with Carnation Instant Glitz, I can’t say as I’d blame them. (From the “Like you have room to talk” files: yes, I drive an Infiniti I30, which is basically a Nissan Maxima in a prom dress.)

Putting myself into the role of yupster, if I had the same $40k this guy says he has to spend, I probably couldn’t get much in the way of Teutonic sleds unless BMW is planning a ¾-series, and while I could get a decent G37 for that kind of money, it’s not at all what he wants.

So I’m thinking Chrysler 300, which can be had for forty large in the C trim — yes, it’s got a Hemi — if you avoid checking every last box on the order form. It’s one of the few cars that gives off the impression that you’ll drive it onto your lawn, if necessary, to keep certain individuals off. Barack Obama used to have one, until he figured out that much of his base resented the hell out of big American cars, whereupon he switched to a meek hybrid.

There was some minor dustup a couple of years back over whether Barack Obama was wearing “mom jeans”; my thinking at the time was along the lines of “What the hell, at least Michelle isn’t wearing ‘em.”

Justin Bieber, on the other hand, is:

The Biebs told Life&Style in NYC Saturday night at Dolce and Gabbana’s Fashion’s Night Out that it just works the best for him.

“I’ve worn women’s jeans before because they fit me. It’s not a trend; it’s just, whatever works, works.”

And it doesn’t hurt that he totally looks like Ellen Page.

(Googlebait? Who, me?)

Disclosure: I used to be married, many years and several kilograms ago, and for a while we wore the same size jeans. Did we swap? Well, an attempt was made, but apparently I couldn’t handle the mirror-image fly with any degree of finesse.

We’re just totally bifurcated this week, so we’re nominating two pieces, one of which was short enough to be a tweet.

In the longer item, Sonic Charmer predicts the Presidential election:

I fully expect President Obama to still be President Obama in 2013 and will be surprised by any other outcome. In fact the thought of him losing re-election is almost (not quite, but almost) inconceivable to me. Why would he lose? Economy etc. aside, President Obama is doing precisely what the country elected him to do, which is to be President while being a slick, photogenic, skinny guy with a darkish skin hue. That is the only reason he was elected and therefore, empirically, that is what the country wanted him to do. And in no way shape or form has he fallen short of that mandate, nor does he threaten to any time in the foreseeable future.

And in a related issue, Dan McLaughlin, @baseballcrank, offered the following wisdom:

I do not believe today’s news changes the odds that Newt Gingrich will be the next President of the United States.

You heard it here — well, twenty-ninth or thirtieth, actually, but certainly not first.

Today would have been Margaret Truman’s 86th birthday, thus giving me the ideal excuse to bring up a Presidential legend: when Harry Truman, who happened to be Margaret’s dad, threatened to kick a Washington Post staffer in the balls — and who hasn’t wanted to do that?

In 1950, Margaret was working on a singing career, and she performed at Constitution Hall in December. WaPo critic Paul Hume gave her a right panning:

Miss Truman is a unique American phenomenon with a pleasant voice of little size and fair quality.

Which is one of the nicer things he said. Eventually he got down to “[she] still cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish,” at which point Harry reached for his pen:

It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you’re off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work.

Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!

Hume, not particularly upset — hey, it’s his job to listen to that sort of thing — eventually sold the letter for $3500; it’s now in a collection in Texas. He died in 2001, nuts unkicked. Margaret commented later that she thought it was funny and might have helped sell a few tickets along the way.

Presidents don’t often make such gestures, though Barack Obama once offered the boot to BP officials.

The thinking around Chicago, reports HillBuzz, is that President Obama will not run for a second term:

They think he will use “family reasons” for not seeking re-election, either making up something about wanting his daughters to grow up outside the limelight of the White House, or even using grandmother Robinson as an excuse, saying she’s sick and Michelle Antoinette wants the family to relocate to Hawaii for their health.

I can believe the bit about the daughters, maybe: the White House can be one hell of a fishbowl, and not every child of a President aspires to being on display.

But then there’s this:

[David] Axelrod was recently on a Chicago Sunday political show and kept dodging all talk of the re-election campaign, which is like Oprah Winfrey turning down a large supreme pizza or a sandwich bigger than her head. It’s unheard of.

Axelrod’s favorite topic in the world is how he got Obama elected president, which means Axelrod’s second favorite topic in the world should be how he is going to re-elect Obama in 2012. He left the White House claiming that’s why he was moving back to Chicago, to focus on the re-election bid, and when given the perfect opportunity to wax on about that, and praise himself and his efforts, he completely dodged the topic, wanting nothing to do with it.

Unless, of course, we’re to believe that Axelrod has actually been thrown under the bus.

There’s a lot more, no individual item even close to being conclusive, but several of which theoretically might make sense. I think it’s safe to say, though, that if Obama does decide not to run for a second term, it won’t be because he’s scared to death of Mitt Romney.

You may have already heard this one:

At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized — at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do — it’s important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we’re talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.

Barack Obama, at the memorial service following the Tucson massacre. Call it a gentle rebuke, in a world that’s seemingly forgotten how.

Tam sat through the President’s post-election prattling, and filed this report:

At best I fear yesterday’s election was a band-aid on a sucking chest wound, and at worst they’ll go right back to getting all knotted up in rearranging the “family values” and “law’n'order” deck chairs while the USS Dollar continues to slip beneath the waves… But while I was eating lunch I watched the Brat Prince keep trying to strike his favorite chin-uplifted Mussolini pose, with its haughty “Who farted?” moue of confident disdain, but it wouldn’t stick, and his facial expression kept drifting back to one that looked like a man chewing on a cat turd.

I suspect they’re required to keep John Kerry — who, by the way, served in Vietnam — at a safe distance from him, lest there develop a singularity of self-absorption so powerful it might actually disrupt a taping of Oprah, half a continent away.

Um, make that “Editorial comment of The Week.” This headline appears on page 7 of the April 2 issue, atop a five-paragraph story.

There are those who question the President’s ability to improvise a speech without electronic assistance. In his own milieu, however, he seems to do just fine:

You might recall that during the early weeks of his presidency, Obama attended a Wizards game and rooted for his hometown team, the Bulls. A vocal instigator, [Miles] Rawls, began woofing at the President. Obama waved off secret service and dished it right back. The two men spent most of the game exchanging tracer fire.

“I just had to see how he was gonna take it,” Rawls told The Washington Post. “Once I knew he was a big trash-talker, too, about them Bulls, that means the gloves came off… He was talking trash and I was talking trash. I couldn’t believe he was that laid back and real. I loved it.”

Just once, I’d like to see him on one side of the dozens.

Hitherto-unheralded watchmaker Jorg Gray got a boost when Barack Obama was spotted wearing one of his 6500 series chronographs, and in true capitalist fashion, the Presidential Watch Company has been organized to sell the heck out of this timepiece.

Obama didn’t pick this model out himself: according to GQ, it was a gift from a member of his security detail. And the agent, I suggest, knew his man: the Jorg Gray, while hardly a Timex, is not really a status symbol either, much like the Chrysler 300C Obama used to drive before Axelrod or Emanuel or somebody told him he’d shore up his green bona fides if he were henceforth seen piloting around a hybrid rather than a Hemi.

The Presidential Watch will set you back $325, a fair sum to those of us wandering around loose with twenty-year-old Casios, but a pittance compared to the price tag of the Really Good Stuff.

(Via Bill Quick, who has long since amortized the cost of his watch.)

Much has been made of President Obama’s “amazingly consistent style”, which apparently never seems to change; says the chap who assembled the evidence of same, “no human being has a photo smile this amazingly consistent.”

I demur. And as evidence, Exhibit A: Paris Hilton.

(Via Steph Mineart, who also noticed the similarity.)

As part of the ongoing process of denouncing David Brooks, Stacy McCain points to a much manlier man:

However much I disagree politically with our Kenyan Marxist progressive president, I’ll grant him this: He smokes Marlboro Reds.

You’ve got to reserve some measure of respect for the daredevil who risks death by firing up a Marlboro Red — a real tough-guy smoke. Marines and truck drivers and Nick Nolte smoke Marlboro Reds.

Take a look at [Michael] Gerson and Brooks and try to picture them puffing Marlboro Reds. You can’t. They don’t have it in them. It would irritate their allergies.

To cloud that picture a bit further, here’s a bit of largely-forgotten history:

In 1924, Philip Morris introduced Marlboro as a women’s cigarette.

A 1927 Marlboro ad published in Vanity Fair Magazine targeted affluent society women with text describing her as, “Women quickly develop discerning taste. That is why Marlboros now ride in so many limousines, attend so many bridge parties, repose in so many hand bags.”

After World War II, the brand was revived, but with a different focus. From CigarettesPedia:

It was thought that Marlboro cigarettes, with their filter, might offer smokers the illusion of a reduced health risk. However, the filter was regarded as effeminate by many men, who made up the bulk of the market.

In 1954, the Leo Burnett Company, a Chicago advertising agency, was given the task of making Marlboro cigarettes appealing to men. The result was the “tattooed man” campaign. It involved a series of print ads showing a man with a tattoo on his hand holding a Marlboro. The man would be one of several “manly” types, such as a policeman, a firefighter, a construction worker or a cowboy. The agency studied consumer response, and the cowboy figure proved to be the most popular. By 1957, the cowboy had replaced all of the others.

Still, you probably shouldn’t count on seeing A Pinky to the Right: The David Brooks Story, starring Nick Nolte, at the local dodecaplex.

(Source.)

The guys at HillBuzz, of late, have been referring to the man in the Oval Office as “Dr. Utopia,” and this is why:

There is a very specific reason why we no longer use the current president or his wife’s name anymore. They are just the current president and the current first lady. Dr. Utopia’s followers love him without knowing anything about him — that will not ever change. Issues like his birth certificate, his natural-born v. naturalized status, his drug abuse (and possible drug selling), his nocturnal activities in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood, his pay-to-play schemes in Chicago, his Rezko dealings, his time at a hatemongering church … absolutely none of this means anything to the people who still walk around with big O’s on their shirts or glued to their cars. If anything, personal criticisms of this man only make his Kool-Aid soaked followers adore him all the more.

Some of those issues strike me as closer to non-issues — hell, I’d hate to have to go look for a copy of my birth certificate at this late date — but the best argument may be this:

Saying the current president’s name aloud is magic to some people. They love the sound of those three syllables. It makes people like Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann positively orgasmic. You do not need to contribute to that particular circle of MSM sycophants by drawing anymore personal attention to this current president than is necessary.

When the Feds assume control of everything, Matthews will have been found to have exceeded the acceptable level of tingle.

As for the “Utopia” reference itself, Robert Stacy McCain is there with the etymology:

Progressives are utopians, and it is important to remember that Thomas More coined the word “utopia” from Greek roots, so that the meaning of the word is, “nowhere.”

The progressive is marching down the road to nowhere, seeking an objective that does not actually exist and can never exist.

Damn that human nature, anyway. It forces us to act like humans, a species which under normal conditions resists being fleeced.

It’s the Obama Hope WordPress theme.

Far be it from me, of course, even to suggest that someone really creative could download the theme and “tweak” it for amusement/commentary purposes.

If ever I was tempted to buy the President a brewski, it’s now, in the wake of this absurd little contretemps:

He was at an NBA basketball game and ordered a brew. Images of Mr. Obama enjoying a beer have angered some people.

One caller to WWL complained, “People are losing 5, 10, 20 thousand dollars a day in the stock market, and he’s sitting there drinking a beer!” She also said, “It’s insulting … there’s a lot of people suffering.” She insisted President Obama should not publicly have fun during a time of so much pain.

Have you seen the price of beer in an NBA arena? This is a full-fledged stimulus package.

And there was this:

“The president is the president 24 hours a day. I don’t think he should drink on the job.”

People like this drive one to drink.

(Via Fark.)

The possibly-pseudonymous Skullturf Q. Beavispants has compiled a list of people who are older than President Obama, from Carl Lewis to “Weird Al” Yankovic.

Of course, the one that perturbs me the most isn’t on Beavispants’ list at all: me.

No doubt about it, this sounds pretty darn good on a cold winter day:

They ordered a house specialty, a Chili Half-Smoke — a quarter-pound half pork and beef smoked sausage on a steamed bun with mustard, onions and chili sauce. They also picked up some chili-topped french fries and iced tea.

The house in question is Ben’s Chili Bowl on D.C.’s U Street, and “they” are Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty and a fellow from Chicago named Barack Obama who’s recently relocated to the District.

I believe I speak for everyone here (with the exception of a couple of vegetarians I know to be lurking on the premises) when I say “Yum.”

The story behind this boot:

Sandra Canselier, Coclico designer, is a French expatriate living in the United States. Since she couldn’t vote for Obama herself, she decided to name a boot after the president-elect.

Which she did. Here’s the pitch:

Coclico’s Obama boot was designed with high-fashion looks in mind. The shaft sports curved seams up one side and a hidden zipper entry on the other. The rounded, peaked toe works with the thick, tapered heel for a comfortable fit and stylish silhouette. Best of all, the vegetable-tanned leather will patinate over time — making this boot look even better with wear.

This color is called “bruciato”; there’s also a “piombo,” a sort of mottled grey. The heel is 3½ inches. The price for either variant is $535 at Coclico’s own Web site or at Amazon.com. I’m assuming you’d be able to get these with the help of some future stimulus check.