The artist whose poster of Barack Obama became a rallying image during the hope-and-change election of 2008 says he understands why so many people have lost faith.
In an exclusive interview with National Journal on Thursday, Shepard Fairey expressed his disappointment with the president -- a malaise that seems representative of many Democrats who had great expectations for Obama.
Fairey explained that when he came up with the poster in 2008, he was trying to find a single image that embodied the issues he cared most about -- promoting health care, helping labor, and curtailing lobbyists. He likened the issues to projectiles.
"Looking at Obama's standpoint on various policies, it was like, 'Why throw all these particular projectiles over the wall... when I could put all those things in one projectile that I could hurl over the wall,'" Fairey said in a phone interview from Los Angeles, where he lives. "Obama was the delivery device in theory. Now, I realize that he maybe is not the correct delivery device, and I'll just deal with those issues separately."
Fairey's much-reproduced portrait of Obama -- head tilted slightly upward, gazing into the distance, with the word "Hope" emblazoned underneath -- captured the imagination of Democrats and unintentionally tweaked Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose husband had been elected as "The Man From Hope.
Obama is the epitomy of "the emperor with no clothes"...when even his supporters start saying that he's a failure and has delivered on his promises, he is IN TROUBLE. I understand...its hard for all those people who thought obama was going to pay their mortgage, zero out their student loans, buy them a new car, and give them the job of their dreams (even though they never had a job before...LOL) to suddenly realize that the cash for clunkers was a failure, their house (that they couldn't afford anyway) is being foreclosed, and the jobs he promised are STILL not there. And now, you actually have to have good credit to make credit purchases.... THAT alone is KILLING them....Obama's credibility is pretty much zero and all the flowery speeches in the world WON'T change the reality that all Americans can easily see.
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