Aftermath: Unmasked Obama Joker artist confronts fame firsthand

Over the last few days, Firas Alkhateeb, the artist behind the picture of President Obama as the Batman Joker whom we profiled on Monday, has become the unlikely poster boy for several issues.

To some, he's a hero for using art to craft an image that embodies widespread frustrations with the president.

To others, he's a fascinating topic of conversation -- one who threw off expectations when he unveiled himself as a so-called liberal.

And the technology community sees him as the most visible representative of free speech after photo-sharing site Flickr removed his image.

But the University of Illinois history student has more important things to worry about: Classes start on Monday.

His e-mail inbox is flooded. In the last few days, Alkhateeb has received 30 to 40 interview requests from online, print, radio and TV stations spanning the globe. He's had to turn a lot of them down and is still trying to find time to respond to the rest.

That's not even counting all the fan and hate mail. "The day after your article, I had gotten 50 friend requests on Facebook from people I didn't know," Alkhateeb said on the phone Thursday.

For the most part, the responses have been positive. People write in to tell him "good job" or ......

Calling Tom Lehrer: Is there a song about Kumar and the White House?

Yes, yes, by now it seems everybody knows that Kumar, who sought out White Castle and slipped out of Guantanamo Bay, is headed to the White House.

Or, to be more precise, that Kal Penn, the actor who played the cinematic Kumar, will join the Obama administration as associate director in the White House office of public liaison. Patrick Goldstein, who captains The Big Picture blog, has the details on the actor who got a big career boost with “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle” and "Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay."

Penn’s career move brings to mind other actors who made the jump to public service. There’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, of course, and Clint Eastwood and that other former actor whose oeuvre includes “Bedtime for Bonzo.”  Let's not forget Jane Alexander, who once headed the National Endowment for the Arts.

But years before, there was Shirley Temple Black, the former child star, whose long diplomatic career included stints as ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia (when there still was one).

And for those with long memories—or at least those who listened to a Tom Lehrer song one too many times — there was George Murphy, a Republican senator from California in the 1960s.

Lehrer is the musical satirist who also gave the world “The Vatican Rag” and “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park.” Murphy was a famous song-and-dance man who strutted his away across big-budget musicals, including “Broadway Melody of 1938” and “Broadway Melody of 1940.” Lehrer immortalized him in song by writing:

Oh gee, it's great,

At last we've got a senator who can

Really sing and dance!

Click here to hear the song.

-- Steve Padilla

Photo: New Line Cinema

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Golden Globes glow with language like that &*%$#@ Blagojevich

Usually it's pop culture rubbing off on politics.

But Sunday night, it sounded like the other %#$&+* way around.

As our LATimes.com colleagues Rachel Abramovitz and Tom O'Neil note elsewhere on this site and elsewhere here, this year's Golden Globe Awards by the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. had acceptance speeches that were full of words like $%&*(=^ and f!$*&-+. Also, "balls," "suck" and "suck it." So if you were among a majority of Americans who didn't watch it, you might have missed something.

Apparently, some were surprised by the profanity production of the culture crowd.

But clearly the actors have been studying Illinois Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was caught on FBI wiretaps and not quoted publicly by that bleeping federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. This was after Blago's December arrest for, among other things, allegedly auctioning off his "<<&*%$# golden" nomination to fill the vacant Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama, who'll be inaugurated in just 8 days.

According to Fitzgerald, the 51-year-old Democrat said things like /;#$@% and )&%^$# and also &%$!@#.

Blagojevich denies any criminal wrongdoing.

On Sunday night, actor Mickey Rourke particularly liked the word "balls," which is only crude and something a lot of politicians such as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid think Blagojevich has in the XXL size. Rourke said "balls" several times on television.

But, reports reported, he said it in an admiring Hollywood kind of way, like sweaty pro athletes in their locker room talk about a particularly good player when they know they're not on television.

Mickey even teased director Darren Aronofsky about being smart, which prompted his friend on-camera to shoot him the finger as in &%  $#*)=! You had to be there. But it was apparently pretty %%$#*- funny to the Hollywood crowd.

And in case any angry online detractors of actors and actresses ever wonder late at night in their Wisconsin basements if their famous targets actually ever read the derogatory comments online, pretend-vice presidential candidate Tina Fey answered that one in a most satisfying way for bloggers/commenters. She cautioned her audience of fellow famous people against feeling too good about themselves.

"They have this thing called the Internet," she informed the expensively-attired crowd. "And you can find a lot of people there who don't like you. I'd like to address some of them now. BabsonLaCrosse, you can suck it! DianeFan you can suck it! Cougar Letter, you can really suck it!"

A defiant Gov. Blagojevich couldn't have put it any &&*)$#@ better.

Fey later elaborated on her critics, saying they had commented here at TheEnvelope.   But hmm, who are they? See the #%*& Fey video below.

--Andrew Malcolm

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Top photo: A Golden Globe award. Credit: Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. Inset photo: Mickey Rourke with the ball-shaped award. Credit: Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press.

Video by Tom O'Neil.

Michelle Obama: more than just the "mom-in-chief"?

In the weeks since her husband was elected president, Michelle Obama has been lauded as the “first lady of style" and hailed as the nation's new “Mom-in-chief.” Questions about her abound, but they're almost always in a domestic context.

"What kind of style will she bring to the White House?" reporters have asked. "What type of dog? What school will the kids attend?"

Fine questions all. But are we missing something?

Obama, after all, is a Harvard-educated lawyer. She has had an impressive career as an attorney and hospital executive. She has never been just a mother. She has never been just a wife. So why define her in those terms now?

It's a sticky question, complicated by the fact that the Obamas themselves seemed to push this narrative in the last months of the campaign. After all, when Obama stood onstage at the Democratic National Convention in August and delivered a speech intended to....

Campaign '08, The Movie: Will Smith as Obama? Richard Dreyfuss as McCain?

The who-saw-it-coming pick of Sarah Palin to fill out the Republican presidential ticket was simply the latest twist in a presidential race that long since strained credibility.

As our colleague Michelle Maltais put it to us in an e-mail, "A screenwriter couldn't come up with a more riveting script than Campaign '08. So I hope Aaron Sorkin is making copious notes and optioning this storyline that's playing out before us."

That got Maltais meditating on how she would cast this movie (that seems to come naturally to folks who grow up in and around L.A.).  Here's what she came up with, complete with occasional commentary (don't worry, we didn't recognize all the names either ... but that's what Google is for):

Barack Obama -- Will Smith (he already has the ears).

Michelle Obama -- Kimberly Elise or maybe Jada Pinkett Smith.

John McCain -- Richard Dreyfuss.

Cindy McCain -- Joan Allen.

Joe Biden -- David Strathairn or Tommy Lee Jones with longer hair.

Palin -- Tina Fey, Megan Mullally (can't take credit for that; "Daily Show").

Hillary Clinton -- Emma Thompson (she did so well in "Primary Colors").

Bill Clinton -- Beau Bridges? Hmmm, maybe Jeff would be better...

As always, The Ticket welcomes reader input and alternate suggestions.

-- Don Frederick

Joe Biden is no Barack Obama on the rubber chicken circuit

Clearly, Barack Obama didn't pick Joe Biden because of his fundraising prowe$$.

Compared to Obama -- and nearly every other presidential candidate in 2008 -- Biden was a piker.

Through Dec. 31, Biden had reported raising $8.2 million in his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama's total at that point: $102 million.

Biden's candidacy ended abruptly after the Iowa caucuses in early January. After he finished his bookkeeping for the failed campaign, his fundraising from donors totaled about $9.9 million. Obama, in his continuing quest for the White House, has raised 39 times that much.

Biden added to his total by transferring money from his Senate account and accepting $2 million in federal matching funds.

Throughout his lengthy political career, Biden -- like Obama -- has drawn heavily from trial lawyers.

The nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics found that the law firm headed by Texas trial attorney Fred Baron has contributed $108,000 to Biden over the years. Baron, who in the '08 campaign was John Edwards’ national finance committee chairman, was in the....

John McCain enters Wayne's World and learns a Hollywood lesson

When John McCain entered "Wayne's World," he quickly got a dose of Hollywood reality.

As The Ticket noted earlier today, the McCain campaign unveiled a new Web ad -- called "Fan Club" -- that continued its effort to deride Barack Obama as little more than a creation of celebrity culture.

Young women swoon over Obama's aura and "soft eyes" and liken him to Bono. All that is fine, at least legally.

But the ad may have crossed the copyright line at the end by including footage of Mike Myers and Dana Carvey doing their Wayne and Garth "We're not worthy" schtick from years past on "Saturday Night Live."

Hollywood types jumped into the fray, directing the McCain campaign to cease and desist -- and so it did.

“Apparently Mike Myers thought we weren’t worthy,” McCain spokesman Brian Rogers said in an e-mail.

McCain's camp blamed Myers for turning his "people" on the Republican.

However, Myers’ Hollywood attorney, Martin Singer, said he made no such demand and was unaware who did. Rogers said that Myers publicist raised the concern.

The re-cut ad, sans the Wayne and Garth imagery (but with the pair's trademark slogan) can be seen on the McCain website.

-- Dan Morain

Rielle Hunter video of John Edwards' during affair

This morning former Sen. John Edwards admitted an affair with a videographer named Rielle Hunter, an issue The Ticket has reported on here previously and here last night and in the Opinion L.A. blog on July 23.

This afternoon, after taping an ABC-TV interview for broadcast later, Edwards issued a printed statement admitting the affair. Later, his wife, Elizabeth, also issued a statement. The full text of both is published on the secondpage of this item, click on the Read more line.

The 55-year-old lawyer, former Democratic vice presidential nominee and former North Carolina senator said:

"In 2006 I made a serious error in judgment and conducted myself in a way that was disloyal to my family and to my core beliefs. I recognized my mistake and I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness.

"Although I was honest in every painful detail with my family, I did not tell the public. When a supermarket tabloid told a version of the story, I used the fact that the story contained many falsities to deny it. But being 99 percent honest is no longer enough."

The complete text of Edwards' statement is available here by clicking on the Read more line below.

Despite her lack of experience, Hunter was hired in 2006 to make a series of behind-the-scenes campaign videos on Edwards for his ultimately unsuccessful run for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Those videos were exhibited on the Edwards website for a brief time last year.

Then, they disappeared.

However, The Ticket has obtained Chapter I of those videos called, in ironic hindsight, "Plane Truths."

The film includes casual in-flight interviews of Edwards during trips to speeches, the candidate making fun of his staff, discussing his speech notes and then cutaways to the actual passages in his later speech and ruminations about the political process in America today, how modern politicians so easily just get speaking a reel and not the truth. All designed to show, presumably, the candidate's human side.

Often, you hear the voice of a woman off-camera asking questions or laughing heartily at some Edwards' comment, which he appears to enjoy.

You do not see the woman. However, the film is dated 2007 and is fully credited to the 42-year-old Rielle Hunter. It's titled "Inspiring Politics: A Webisode Series John Edwards. "

In the opening, the former Democratic presidential candidate, who finished second in the Iowa caucuses, says:

"I've come to the personal conclusion that I actually want the country to see who I am, who I really am. But I don't know what the results of that will be.

"But for me personally I'd rather be successful or unsuccessful based on who I really am, not based on some plastic Ken doll you put out in front of audiences. That's not me, you know."

In his statement Edwards also denies paternity for Hunter's baby and<

offers to take any tests to prove that. He also denies making any financial payments to Hunter or to the Edwards friend who's taken responsibility for the infant, Frances Quinn Hunter, born Feb. 27, although her birth certificate carries no father's name.

"It is inadequate to say to the people who believed in me that I am sorry," Edwards continues, "as it is inadequate to say to the people who love me that I am sorry.

"In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic. If you want to beat me up -- feel free. You cannot beat me up more than I have already beaten up myself."

He says with this statement and his TV interview he will have nothing further to say on the matter.

According to the Associated Press, Edwards' One America Committee paid $100,000 to Midline Groove Productions on July 6, 2006, five days after Hunter, who had no previous video experience, incorporated the firm in Delaware. She produced four webisodes, one only 150-seconds long.

To see the full texts of both Edwards' statements, click the Read more line below.

--Andrew Malcolm

Photo: Extra via Associated Press

Deficit terminator Schwarzenegger reviews new 'Terminator' movie

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has been busy in recent days combating the dread budget shortfall by terminating 10,000 state jobs and proposing an immediate one-cent "temporary" multiyear increase in the state sales tax, legislative sources have told The Times' Evan Halper and Nancy Vogel.

The estimated $15.2-billion budget gap may be among the worst monsters the actor has faced since he left the "Terminator" movie series after parts I, II and III and won the audition for governor.

Schwarzenegger's current role comes to an end at the close of 2010, thanks to term limits. And it may be just as well, since he's long maintained he'd never raise taxes.

Our clever blogging colleague Geoff Boucher over at the new Hero Complex sat down the other day with the former actor, former bodybuilder and got his reaction to early rushes of the fourth in the "Terminator" series, "Terminator Salvation," which does not star himself because everyone knows he got melted in one of the other ones.

Schwarzenegger sounded puzzled by what he saw of the new clips, now being filmed in New Mexico with Christian Bale and due out next year.

"I didn't see enough," the governor said. "I wasn't sure who the Terminator was. I don't know if there is one or if he's the star or the hero. These are the things that determine the success and how strong the movie will be."

Boucher and Schwarzenegger talked about many things in the interview, including the governor's favorite recent movies and stars. (He loves Will Ferrell.)

But, in the end, the governor maintains he's moved on from acting. "When this movie comes out," he said, "I won't be sitting there saying, 'Why can't I do that?' I hope it makes a lot of money and is very successful."

Ah, but what about "Terminator 5: The Return"?

You can read the entire interview here.

-- Andrew Malcolm

Progressives put bug in Barack Obama's (left) ear

As if hecklers weren't enough, Barack Obama gets a little cuff on the ear this week in the form of an open letter at the Nation. Signed by a long roster of political progressives -- including Barbara Ehrenreich, Robert Greenwald, William Greider, Tom Hayden, Walter Mosley, Katha Pollitt and David Sirota -- the letter urges Obama to, essentially, stick with those who got him to the dance.

"Since your historic victory in the primary, there have been troubling signs that you are moving away from the core commitments shared by many who have supported your campaign, toward a more cautious and centrist stance -- including, most notably, your vote for the FISA legislation granting telecom companies immunity from prosecution for illegal wiretapping, which angered and dismayed so many of your supporters.

"We recognize that compromise is necessary in any democracy. We understand that the pressures brought to bear on those seeking the highest office are intense. But retreating from the stands that have been the signature of your campaign will weaken the movement whose vigorous backing you need in order to win and then deliver the change you have promised."

We've previously noted the unease on the left about the progression of Obama's campaign. The question, of course, is whether the political left has anywhere else to turn. This is as close to true political power -- the kind that controls national agendas -- as the progressive have been in years, so it's hard to imagine too many of them drifting off to Ralph Nader come November.

But if Obama does win in November, they warn that they won't exactly give him a pass.

"In other areas -- such as the use of residual forces and mercenary troops in Iraq, the escalation of the US military presence in Afghanistan, the resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and the death penalty -- your stated positions have consistently varied from the positions held by many of us, the 'friends on the left' you addressed in recent remarks. If you win in November, we will work to support your stands when we agree with you and to challenge them when we don't."

The letter invites others to sign on.

-- Scott Martelle

Photo: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times