Bobbling Obama

Perhaps you may not have heard, but Glenn Beck is making big news for a stunt he just pulled off. Beck submerged a bobble-head doll of Barack Obama in a jar of fluid that looked like urine, proclaimed it art, and named it "Obama in Pee Pee".

Needless to say, the Twitterverse is going crazy with comments about how repulsive, vile, shameless, and disrespectful this action was. An author who published a story about the event even came out and wrote "Glenn Beck, the right wing, Tea party sicko -- who's obsessed with President Obama -- is at it again".

Fascinating.

To up the ante, Beck tried to sell the artwork on Ebay, with all proceeds to be donated to charity. The highest bid was $13,800.00 before Ebay pulled the plug on the auction.

As stated earlier, there are thousands and thousands of people who are outraged over this incident. There are, at the same time, thousands and thousands of people that are laughing their collective butts off --this author included. It has been absolutely delightful to see the Left throwing fits of outrage and reading their horrified comments. I haven't laughed this hard since hearing Joe Biden on the campaign trail.

There are only two possible conclusions that we can draw from the leftist hysteria. Either they don't know about the so-called "Piss Christ", or they are hypocritical beyond redemption.

If you are part of the first group, please allow me to tell you a story.

In 1989, artist (if we can be extremely broad with the term) Andres Serrano used $15,000 of taxpayer funds and created his masterpiece, though exactly what it was a "piece" of I will leave to your imagination. His artwork, which was called Immersion (Piss Christ), consisted of a photograph of a crucifix submerged in a jar of the artist's urine.

After making appearances in museums around the world, it was recently exhibited at the Edward Tyler Nahem gallery in New York City.

You may remember the riots and murders that took place around this time from angry Christians who just couldn't..... oh wait. Sorry. That never happened.

Needless to say, however, there were millions of Christians that were very upset about the piece of crap, er, art. It wasn't the content that bothered them near as much as the fact that their tax dollars had been used to help produce it.

In the end, however, the song remained the same. Christians should just shut up and let the art world proceed with its evolution, regardless of whether the artwork is subsidized by the taxpayer or not.

Is everyoine beginning to draw the parallel here?

In one case you have the National Endowment of the Arts shelling out $15,000 so a man can show a photograph of Jesus Christ submerged in actual urine. But, you see, that is perfectly acceptable! There is no reason to get upset!

In the other case, you have a man submerging a bobble-head doll of President Obama in fake urine, and the world is ending. How can Beck be so... disrespectful? (Note also that Beck has pulled off a twofer here: not only is he satrizing the accepted attitude toward cutting-edge "art", but also the Left's insistence on Obama's "divinity", as revealed by another recent "artwork.")

The point is that both pieces of "art" are vile and deliberately controversial. The differences are that:

1. People didn't really complain much about Serrano's work. In fact, it was praised in quite a few art circles. Christians who did complain were just old fashioned hicks that didn't understand art. Shoot, they didn't deserve to have their opinion listened to!

2. When the shoe is placed on the other foot (or the different figure is submerged in urine), the outcry is tremendous! Oh, this is just not right! This is terrible!

3. And, no one shoveled any tax money to Glenn Beck to produce his work.

If, after reading this story, you still want to wring your hands and cry foul about the bobble-head, you are certainly free to do so. But if you have any consistency whatsoever I would expect you to join Christians in demanding that we stop using taxpayer dollars to subsidize artists like Serrano.

Andres Serrano has rights in this country and I respect them. He can produce anything that he wants, and his work can be displayed in any museum that agrees to show it. But you should never make the taxpayer pay for it. Let him find his own way.

If people are still unable to see the connection, and are intent on condemning Beck for doing something so wrong, while at the same time defending Serrano -- well, I guess there is only one thing left for me to do.

Hope that Beck starts thinking about a "Pee Pee Pelosi".

Follow David on Twitter at @DavidJGarth and visit his website A Most Sacred Right.

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