Rather than trying to spoof, mock or even gently tease President Barack Obama–the man who actually holds the highest office in the land–the paper is targeting the administration’s out-of-power critics.

The Onion’s latest Obama humor article taunts those who note how a leader who rails against the rich routinely enjoys the perks that come with his wealth, power and status:

Obama Criticized For Living In Lavish Mansion While Most Americans Struggle To Make Ends Meet

WASHINGTON—Over the past three years, as the sluggish economy has forced many Americans to tighten their belts, President Obama has reportedly enjoyed a lavish personal lifestyle, residing with his family in a 132-room house staffed by a 24-hour security detail, five full-time chefs, and a live-in maid service.

In recent weeks, many of the president’s critics have seized upon the issue, arguing that anyone who sleeps in a sprawling six-level neoclassical mansion covering 18 acres of Washington, D.C.’s most valuable real estate is clearly out of touch with the lives of ordinary citizens.

You see, those silly Obama critics will attack poor Barack on just about any charge. So we should simply ignore them, right?

It’s a classic case of misdirection, a comedic attempt to distract voters from Obama’s lifestyle, including lavish Halloween parties thrown by Hollywood elite and taking money-sucking vacations on our dime.

A comedy institution unafraid of attacking those who share its ideology would have a field day with Obama’s actions. Instead, the folks at The Onion can only see fit to mock the administration’s critics for daring to point out the awkward gap between the president’s rhetoric and his selfish reality.

After all, then-Sen. Barack Obama campaigned in 2008 alongside Greek columns and promised his election would be the moment “when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal …” And let’s not forget the plethora of broken campaign promises, battalions of straw men and class warfare that have come to define the last three years.

Instead, The Onion serves up faux news stories like this:

Obama Openly Asks Nation Why on Earth He Would Want to Serve for Another Term

Yes, the media narrative regarding Obama has officially arrived at a newspaper dedicated to political satire. Liberal humorists would rather protect their own than make us laugh and speak truth to power.

PITTSBURGH—Citing three years of exhausting partisan politics, constant gridlock in Congress, and an overall feeling that the entire nation has “completely lost it,” President Barack Obama openly asked a campaign-rally crowd Tuesday why he’d want to serve another term as president of “this godforsaken country.”

“My fellow Americans, I come to you today to ask, why?” Obama said to 1,200 people gathered inside a gymnasium at Taylor Allderdice High School. “Why can’t our congressional leaders work together to create jobs? Why can’t Wall Street ever be held accountable? And most important, why on God’s green earth would I voluntarily subject myself to this nonsense for another four years?”

Didn’t Obama campaign as a non-partisan healer who would rise above congressional gridlock? And didn’t he enjoy a Democratic Congress for his first two years in office that allowed him to pass virtually anything he pleased?

Now, here come the delusional talking points that could have been uttered by Bill Press or any other reality-challenged liberal pundit.

“I have a pen and some paper right here,” Obama said Wednesday morning at a town hall meeting in Ohio. “Let’s list the pros and cons of being president. Con: There are people out there who literally want to shoot you dead. Con: We live in a country seriously considering a Newt Gingrich White House. Con: You can help 40 million Americans receive health care, sign legislation that regulates a financial system run amok, give the order to kill Osama bin Laden, help topple Muammar Qaddafi’s tyrannical regime without losing the life of one American soldier, end the war in Iraq, repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, stave off a second Great Depression, take out more than 30 top al- Qaeda leaders, and somehow everyone still calls you the next Jimmy Carter.”

And what’s the video link currently at the bottom of the story page: Did the media treat Bachmann unfairly because she’s an insane woman?

Expect much, much more of this as the presidential elections come into sharper focus.

Obama’s Home Teleprompter Malfunctions During Family Dinner

It’s a sad state of affairs when you have to credit satirists for doing what they are supposed to be doing, but as SNL spins the lamest impersonation ever to chastise Obama for not being liberal enough and Bill Maher obsessively pounds out 3,000 words hoping to undo his own status as a punchline after a public meltdown, we’ll take what we can get.

After I made “Michael Moore Hates America,” I spent several years (and still occasionally) doing interviews for the press on movie stuff. They’d always call me, because, you know, I’m a crazy, angry right-wing nut job and I’d made the only “conservative” documentary any of them had ever heard of. Something controversial would happen in the world of cinema, my phone would ring for a few days and then I’d go back to my life. In one episode, I received a call from the CBC. They wanted to know if I could do a satellite interview with them on an evening news talk show. The topic was the about-to-be-released film “Death of a President” where President George W. Bush was digitally assassinated.

The producer asked me if I could go on and talk about how outrageous it was that the filmmakers would do this. I said, “Well, I’ll go on if you like, but you should know that I don’t find it at all outrageous.” There was a long pause. “You don’t?” she asked. “Nope,” I responded. “I’m a filmmaker. I’m an artist. I would never, ever tell another artist what they should or shouldn’t create. I mean, look, President Bush is still in office and it’s probably not a great idea to do it with a sitting president. But more importantly, he’s married and he has kids. And regardless of whether he’s loved or reviled, he’s still a human being and not a fictional character. So from that perspective, I think it’s kind of mean. But I’d never tell an artist to not create something for any reason.”

“Well,” said the producer, clearly disappointed, “we’re really looking for someone who’s outraged.”

“Good luck finding your outrage,” I said, before exchanging pleasantries and hanging up.

And that, dear readers is almost everything that’s wrong with the world.

Rather than inviting intelligent people to simply talk about stuff they know about and who have expertise they might be able to share with the audience, we live in a world where feigned outrage and an inability to say “I might be wrong and you might be right” has resulted in our loss of focus on what this, the greatest nation the world has ever known, was supposed to be… an arena of ideas.

I’m a hardcore libertarian. I read the Founders and feel like they’d be utterly stunned at the power the federal government has slowly and surely obtained. Some of my very close friends think that’s pure silliness, and we talk about it and hash it out and yell at each other. And after I win the debate, we all feel like we’ve learned something. But they’re right too. They just picked the wrong nation to want socialism in.

I also happen to have a deep respect for Glenn Beck, both for his talent and skill in fusing entertainment and enlightenment, for his deep concern for our nation and where we’re headed, but also because of something deeply personal that our mutual friend was nice enough to convey my thanks for. Not to be opaque, but suffice it to say that Glenn has talked about something that has had a profound impact on my life, beyond politics.

Should The Onion have wished death on Glenn Beck? Probably not, because no matter how much you might hate him, he’s still a guy with a family and feelings. By most accounts, Glenn’s a nice guy (though he admits to having been an asshole in the past, but so do I). I’ve never heard him trash an individual outside of discussing what they’ve said publicly (Van Jones comes to mind), which is certainly fair game in the business of politics. I’ve never heard him step outside of the political and attack a person’s family or religion (unless the context directly informs the politics… i.e. Jeremiah Wright). Yet people hate him with a white-hot passion for speaking truth to power, so much so that he has private security and receives real, honest-to-goodness death threats on a daily basis. That’s a terrible thing, whether the threats are against Glenn or Michael Moore.

But more important than whether the Onion was mean to Glenn is why Nolte asked me to write this piece in the first place, which is that he’s a smart enough guy to know I’m not outraged and that I look at things a little differently, especially when it comes to entertainment. He knew that rather than the sniping that might come from our side, it might be more fun to have a conversation. Glenn Beck probably isn’t outraged (as an entertainer, I bet he might even think it funny). And maybe you shouldn’t be either. We probably shouldn’t get fired up and angry over little things that have no real impact on our world. The Onion doesn’t matter because they can’t tax or enslave me, and if I don’t like their work, I can always choose to not click in their direction. We could also simply counter it with really funny shit that hammers their guys. But mostly, I think we should save our energy for the big fights that mean something, like our struggle to remain free in an increasingly oppressive and parental America.

Tomorrow, if he chooses, Glenn will climb behind that microphone and speak truth to power again. Because, after all, the answer to bad speech is more speech.

Wow. Going after Glenn Beck. What iconoclasts! How brave! How ballsy! How against the grain! How counter-culture!

If “The Onion” is so desperate to be liked by the establishment, why not just send certificates for free ice cream, or something?

The irony here is that Glenn Beck is everything the “Onion” thinks they are: funny, cutting edge, unafraid, and in the arena ready to mix it up. 

Imagine the horror if someone were to grant the “Onion” a touch of self-awareness and they woke up one morning to the fact that since Obama’s election they’ve devolved into nothing more than just another toadie for The Man.

In other tragic news, Glenn Beck is seen daily by 3 million viewers.

MORE:

Cowardly ‘Onion’ Ignores Obama, Ridicules Reagan’s Alzheimer’s

Onion Ignores Obama, Slams Rush

The Onion Can’t Bear to Mock The One

Week after week The Onion bends over backward not to satirize The One. That’s keeping in line with most of today’s cowardly comics, from David Letterman to Bill Maher.

Jon Stewart of “The Daily Show” has shown some interest in pursuing the president’s comic potential, but it comes in fits and starts. But The Onion’s latest attempt at humor is both vicious and wrongheaded.

“U.S. Government Finds $20 Trillion Buried by Absentminded Reagan in 1987,” the headline cries.

The article tells how Reagan stored away a near endless array of Mason jars, shoe boxes and other small capsules with small amounts of money, keepsakes and other trivial goods toward the end of his second term.

The find means the country’s current economic crisis is over, we’re told, and the article further hints the nation’s money woes can be traced directly back to the 40th president.

Never mind Obama’s stimulus package has led to a ballooning of the national deficit to comic proportions.

Nothing worth satirizing there, folks. Move along.

Presidents should never be protected from satire, but a gag related to Reagan’s mental health in light of his Alzheimer’s Disease is a pretty low blow.

In case the reader isn’t sure the piece mocks Reagan’s mental state, check out his part of the story:

“Reports from retired Secret Service agents who routinely witnessed a disoriented Reagan sneaking out of the White House late at night …”

Maybe Onion readers will have to wait 20-plus years for the newspaper to dare tackle Obama’s profligate spending.

The piece ends with this vile faux quote from an average citizen:

“I guess the poor man [Reagan] wasn’t as crazy as everyone thought. Turns out he was a [expletive] lunatic.”

The humor publication has been tap dancing wildly to avoid any articles that could so much as pierce the skin of the new president. But they took off the gloves when it came time to mock Limbaugh in the newest edition, now available everywhere.

To say the “Rush Limbaugh Returns” infographic isn’t funny is to be kind. It’s cruel and assumes both the worst about Limbaugh and his legion of fans. Humor needs to be based on a kernel of truth to work, but only a rabid left winger would think the material here is knee slapper stuff.

Here’s a sample of the faux incendiary comments Limbaugh has made, according to the publication:

“What is it with these black presidents anyway?”

“America should be terrified of Barack Obama’s skin color – whoops, I mean socialist agenda.”

“Now, I’m not saying Barack Obama’s a Muslim. But I do think he masterminded the 2004 Madrid terror attacks.”

Laughing yet?

I suppose the bit drew snickers in the halls of Onion headquarters, but it’s hard to imagine anyone else laughing at these pathetic gags.

Here’s a tip – cruel isn’t funny. And Limbaugh isn’t a racist. At least he doesn’t make offensive jokes about Indian-Americans operating convenience stores like some Democratic politicians we know.

America’s Finest News Source has some explaining to do.

The Onion , the usually biting comic weekly, just can’t bring itself to mock President Barack Obama. The One has been in office for more than a month now, and the last four Onion issues have tip-toed around anything remotely tough on the Commander-in-Chief. It’s hardly a shock, since most comics in toto seem to have a hands off approach to the new president. But The Onion?

The latest edition offers up a lame Whitman’s Sampler of Obama related gags. Its Barack Obama Black History Month graphic trots out four lame jokes, each worse than the next. And none carry any political weight.

Here’s an example: In 1969, fellow second grader Leon Hoyt became the first person to make fun of Barack Obama’s name, referring to him as “Buttock” Obama for the entire school year.

Oooooh, that’s gotta sting.

Check out this above the fold gag story – “Obama disappointed Cabinet failed to understand his reference to ‘Savage Sword of Conan’ #24.”

Here’s another zinger -”Liberals horrified by lack of inexperience among Obama appointees.”

Boy, take it easy on Obama, will ya?

The paper did find time to swipe at former Vice President Dick Cheney (“Cheney dunk tank raises $800 for nation”).

To be fair, it’s not as if Obama appointed several cabinet member candidates who flamed out in spectacular fashion … or had Iran’s president mock him over his weak foreign policy posturing … or forced a vote on a massive stimulus bill and then took a long weekend vacation … or broke campaign promises at record speed in his first weeks in office.

Obama simply hasn’t given The Onion much to work with, has he?