The Great Seal of Barack Obama

by Mark Rhoads

No one could make this up. When I first saw the picutre of the Great Seal of Obama at right I figured this had to be a spoof from some blog.

Then I saw it in The Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times and their articles did not seem to be tongue-in-cheek so now I am really curious. Has David Axelrod lost his mind? Has Obama? The Great Seal of Obama even has its own Latin inscription reading Vero Possumus which some people are laboring to translate as "Yes, We Can" or Yes we can Truly?"

Someone will know the answer. I cannot wait until Monday night to see if Jay Leno and David Letterman come up with their own great seals. Maybe tonight on Saturday Night Live there will be one for SNL Producer Loren Michaels. Or, maybe next we can look forward to a knock off of the statue of Honest Abe by Augustus St. Gaudens in Lincoln Park. I can see it now, Obama is holding his left lapel with his hand and his right arm is pointing up and forward in the fashion of a classic portrait of Mao Tse Tung.

The Great Seal of Obama reminds me of the time many years ago that Mike Royko sponsored his own contest to design a new city seal for Chicago.  The winning entry was a picuture of an outstretched palm up with the Latin Motto, "Ubi Est Mea?" for Where's Mine?  How I wish again that Mike Royko's pal Slats Grobnik were still around.  Slats would have a field day with the breathtaking pretentiousness of Barry Obama.  If the Obamaiacs are truly so far out in la la land that they don't realize how ridiculous the seal looks, then we can look forward to a million laughs in this campaign instead of the vague and nasty one we expected.  I promise to make a donation of at least $50 to help the next GOP candidate for Trustee of the Metropolitan Sanitary District of Greater Chicago--excuse me, I mean Water Reclamation District-- who manufactures his or her personal campaign seal.  In fact, I hope every Republican candidate in Illinois will design a personal campaign seal with the motto: "Pretendamus Ludicrous Democrati sum."