US war minister, Leon Panetta & Mister Quincy Magoo: separated at birth?
Most people know Mister Magoo as a myopic, slightly daft cartoon character but he was created in 1949 by two animators who had been blacklisted for political activity. He was conceived as a mean-spirited, misanthropic, politically reactionary parody against the rise of McCarthyism. With the ascendant Cold War, Magoo was handed off to another animator who scrubbed his image of its political content & morphed Magoo into a blustering, harmless loudmouth & blowhard. Some of the later TV versions of the 1960s (at the height of the Civil Rights Movement) included racist stereotypes in the character of Charlie (pronounced in episodes as, “Cholly”) his Chinese “houseboy”. Eventually Magoo ended up shilling products for General Electric & a spectacle company.
Panetta, shares all the repugnance of Magoo & none of the charms. In this photo (which is trimmed), Panetta is being honored by the Chinese defense minister during his recent visit to China. (Photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo/AFP)
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