The Ugly Hypocrisy of DU.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. Some aren't fat jokes; some are fat Christie jokes. It's a subtle distinction but operative.

For example, the Hindenburg joke you reference would not make any sense if it were about any other fat person. It only works because Christie is going down in flames from his own hubris. So it's not a "fat joke", it's a fat Christie joke. It may seem a subtle distinction, but it is important and operative.

Likewise, graphics that highlight the hypocrisy of Christie's tax- and service-cutting while he is obviously consuming large quantities of food (and maybe alcohol, does anyone know?) are not "jokes" per se, but satire. Regardless of whatever genetics or conditions a person has, their corpus does not get to be Christie's size without consuming large quantities of calories.

All the same, Christie has lost weight in the last year and that is praise worthy, even if it is for a craven political goal.

One could, as a progressive even, conceive of making a joke or satire that involved Obama's African heritage, but it would be much harder to do so because it would not play into hypocrisy or events in anything like the way Christie's policies and actions have. For example, Obama's drone strikes don't have any connection with his African-ness. A cartoon drawing Obama as an African tribesman throwing drones like spears would simply be racist.