Looks like we’ll have to stop subcontracting Gavin at Sadly, No! to concoct embarrassing Photoshop portraits of American Greetings executives. Their Blue Mountain e-card division has heard the voices, as President Bush might say, and opted to drop the Democrats in Bondage line, rather than balance it with depictions of John McCain and Rudy Guiliani in ball gags and three-strap penis cages. Mustn’t lower the level of discourse, after all.
Maryc forwarded me the following email, which a chastened Blue Mountain rep sent to a friend of hers who had joined in the chorus of disapproval:
Hello,
Thank you for contacting BlueMountain.com Customer Service.
Thank you for sharing your feedback. Political satire is popular with our subscribers. However, we understand that this particular e-card was offensive to you and others. Therefore, we have removed it from the site. We
apologize to you, and to the others we offended. We always appreciate consumer feedback, and will take your
comments into consideration when developing political satire in the future.Thank you,
Joshua M
Your Customer Support Representative
BlueMountain.com
Well, not to belabor the point, but I don’t see how depicting the non-sexually repressed party as a bunch of costumed submissives qualifies as satire, political or otherwise, but no doubt the laugh track from Fox’s Half Hour News Hour would find it funny.
Still, any bets that “when developing political satire in the future,” Blue Mountain puts out a series of Valentine cards showing Dick Cheney, naked but for a leather posing pouch, leading George W. Bush around on a leash, and pausing occasionally to make the nude Commander-in-Chief swish flies with his horsetail butt-plug?