HuffPo Headline Of The Day

I wish I could do the ‘screen-save’ image-thing that Macs can do right now.  Because the headline at the HuffPo is baffling.

It reads “Dwight D. Obama” and then the sub says “Eisenhower’s ‘Military-Industrial Complex’ Suffers Major Blow… Congress, Obama Roll Back F-22 Production.”

Like this:

Dwight D. Obama

Eisenhower’s ‘Military-Industrial Complex’ Suffers Major Blow…

Congress, Obama Roll Back F-22 Production

And then there’s pictures and shit:

What I find baffling is the apparent mixed message.  The question I had after my first reading of it was, “Does the HuffPo honestly think that Dwight Eisenhower was a guy who supported the growth of the military-industrial complex?  Impossible.”  And then I was like, “Oh, no.  Wait.  Okay.  They’re calling Obama ‘Dwight D. Obama’ because they expect their readership to be historically savvy enough to realize that Eisenhower was the guy who warned about the military-industrial complex; and since Obama wants to put the kibbutz on the F-22, he’s, like, the first President in ages who’s actually listened to Ike’s warning and, you know, stood up to lunacy.  Cool.”

And then it wasn’t so baffling.

And then I read the article.  Which was, you know, fine.

But then I was like, “Are the HuffPo readers really going to get all of that?  Or are they going to think Obama’s countering a trend that Eisenhower, as a Republothug (or whatever HuffPo readers are calling Replicans these days) by virtue of being a Republothug, started?”  I.e., are they going to read the article?

And then I read the comments.

They’re HuffPo worthy, but my initial (cynical) worry was ill-founded.  Other people read the article, too.  And they didn’t go the partisan name-calling-“I hate Eisenhower because there’s an (R) after his name and No, goddamnit, I clearly did NOT read the article”- route, so common to the HuffPo.  Even though I know that according to wingnut orthodoxy Ike was a sissy-pants-RINO, it’s still important for new media outlets to publish articles linking a Democratic President’s actions in the present to a Republican (WWII Super-Hero-General, no less) President’s forebodings from the past.  It demonstrates how what was once seemingly a ‘conservative’ position (‘We’ve got enough military men in our lives, thank you’) has  become inexplicably ‘progressive.’  It demonstrates that ‘conservative’ doesn’t mean the same thing in American politics anymore.  At least not in the realm of foreign policy.