You’ve probably seen Hillary Clinton in a bikini.
She didn’t pose for that famous photo. No paparazzo snapped it. It was constructed in Photoshop, with her head placed on a somewhat more buxom model’s body. It was a joke.
I’m not sure I “get” the joke completely. Sure, take the Pompous Pol and turn her into a pinup. But, still.
Also not very funny was the recent Photoshopping of Georgia State Rep. Earnest Smith’s head onto the body of a porn star. Andre Walker did the work, as he confessed on Monday. “Rep. Earnest Smith Shows His Thin Skin, Says I Have No Right to Make Fun of Him,” Walker amusingly titled his Georgia Politics Unfiltered piece. The picture? Less amusing.
But de gustibus non est disputandum and all that.
It’s not as if the political mockery that the Founding Fathers engaged in was nice, or even decent.
Well, sooner than you can say “Alien and Sedition Act,” Rep. Smith co-sponsored a bill, HB 39, to make Photoshopping politicians onto nude or indecently photographed bodies a misdemeanor, subject to a $1000 fine.
Earnest Smith summed up his case with PC sanctimony:
No one has a right to make fun of anyone. You have a right to speak, but no one has a right to disparage another person. It’s not a First Amendment right.
He couldn’t be more wrong. The Supreme Court has famously come down on the side of making fun of politicians.
Legislators’ biggest problem is that they want to legislate, even where inappropriate. Maybe they should mandate tests in constitutional law before they are allowed to represent us.
Or perhaps “Earnest” should take a lesson in Irony. Or in “lightening up.”
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob