Not my most imaginative title, I’ll admit.

The gallery feature isn’t working, as it didn’t with the other cover-fests except for the first one, so I had to fumble around with these pics individually.  Quite how that relates to an unimaginative title I’m not sure, but I wanted to share with you how much of a pain in the a*s these cover-porn posts have been.

With that out of the way, it’s now time for the inevitable comparison with The Economist covers featuring the king of kings, Barry Obama.

Those of you with eyes will immediately notice that Barry’s only starred on a mere 18 covers of The Economist.  Within those 18, however, 16 use photographs of Barry, while only two (11%) use cartoons.

For Dubya, conversely, 16 of the 50 covers (32%) are caricatures.

This is not as insignificant as it may seem.  For while the illustrated covers can be quite creative and can portray a message far more easily than a sprawling title, the chief reason why a ‘toon is used instead of a ‘pic is for the purposes of humiliation.  Though politicians will do just about anything you tell them to if there’s a chance that they’ll make the news by so doing, drawing a cover image offers even more possibilities for making fun of a target.

So while The Economist was more than happy to do this with regard to Dubya, they’re treating Barry with a far greater degree of reverence, plastering his vapid grin on their covers, along with mostly flattering headlines.

But that’ll change soon enough.  The potential for gaining riches, readers and fame through peddling anything but the official line on Barry is becoming more apparent each day.  Whether he’s on the ascent (the past) or the descent (from now until kingdom come), Barry sells.  Unlike TIME or Newsweek, which are happily drooling into each other’s ears about their bottomless love for Barry, The Economist will probably fall into line at some point.

In the meantime, how about some objectivity?  Bush got slapped with an “Is He Ready?” cover (second from top row), but Barry didn’t?

Really?

I know that it’s been traumatic, but this is the final, final edition of Barry tributes.

Well, maybe.

Anyway, this time it’s the turn of The Economist covers. Falling well behind Newsweek (30) and TIME (28) with a desultory 18 covers of Zero, The Economist does at least maintain a more even-handed appearance.

Not that that’s terribly difficult when the competition is what it is, but still.

Does this mean that it’s time for Barry for start whinging about another media outlet that *gasp* sometimes does its job and doesn’t always take every single thing that he says at face value?

I know it’s been traumatic, but this is the final, final edition of Barry tributes.

Well, maybe.

Anyway, this time it’s the turn of The Economist covers.  Falling well behind Newsweek (32) and TIME (27) with a desultory 16 covers of Zero, The Economist does at least maintain a more even-handed appearance.  Not that that’s terribly difficult when the competition is what it is, but still.

Does this mean that it’s time for Barry for start whinging about another media outlet that *gasp* sometimes does its job and doesn’t always take every single thing that he says at face value?