Since Rush Limbaugh first claimed that the villain in the new Batman movie "The Dark Knight Rises" was deliberately named Bane by diabolical Democratic operatives in order to brainwash America's movie-going public against Mitt Romney, the saga has taken a few turns. First Rachel made copious fun of Mr. Limbaugh's theory and then wrote him an open letter which she re-iterated on last night's show. Fun was had.
Undaunted (OK, maybe a little bit daunted) the right has been cooking up a counter-meme: Mitt Romney isn't Bane at all. He's actually Batman. In an attempt to re-direct his previous wack-a-doodlery, Mr. Limbaugh said, "Like I pointed out yesterday, Batman is Romney. The good guy's Romney."
Aha! Much more satisfying narrative, let's run with that!
One citizen journalist floated this:
"Mitt Romney and Bain Capital resemble Bruce Wayne far more than the destructive (although ostensibly drug-lord-fighting) villain 'Bane' who originates in a South American country that was taken over by a leader inspired by the uprising of Fidel Castro. Don't be fooled. No matter how much phonic or phantasmic spin one conjures up, the stubborn moral of the story remains: In Batman, the good guy and the rich guy are one and the same."
And finally, the man who co-created the character Bane, Chuck Dixon, a self-described staunch conservative, phoned into the "Schnitt Show" a nationally syndicated radio program and said, "It's ridiculous. Obviously Bane was not created as an attack on Mitt Romney. We never heard of Romney twenty years ago. . . . My understanding is that Bane is more of an Occupy Wall Street type. Romney is more like Bruce Wayne."
Glad we could clear that up.
(Photoshop: Will Femia. Larger version here. More about the actual guy holding the chair in the original picture here.)