NewsMax.com, the online version of a rightwing US tabloid, is tapping into postwar jingoism by selling a spoof version of the "Iraq's Most Wanted" playing cards - a deck depicting the 54 "weasels" most guilty of opposing the US-led war.
In the past, NewsMax has flogged replicas of the original US army playing cards, showing the most wanted members of Iraq's former regime. It has also plugged T-shirts (sample caption: Live Free or Die - above a big picture of the Stars and Stripes), books and videos on rightwing politicians and moralists, in a bid to extract cash from its monthly 8 million online readers.
Now NewsMax, the baby of US conspiracy theory journalist Christopher Ruddy, has added to its line of tasteful all-American merchandise with a deck of cards vilifying the 54 public figures it deems most guilty of unpatriotic behaviour over the Iraq war.
The "deck of weasels" includes images of such notorious seditionists as Kofi Annan and Barbra Streisand.
NewsMax says the cards "depict the enemies of America and Iraq's liberation in a satirical way" while revealing the evidence of their "hatred" - their own quotations indicating their un-Americanism.
The Ace of Spades, NewsMax exclusively reveals, is "none other than French prime minister Chirac, Saddam Hussein's partner in crime of 30 years". It backs up this accusation of Saddam-loving with the following rather lukewarm quotation: "Our position is no matter what the circumstances, France will vote no."
The deck includes a suite of "bleeding Hearts" - Hollywood actors such as Susan Sarandon, Tim Robbins, Martin Sheen and Sean Penn, regularly criticised for their anti-war sympathies. The jokers are represented by Jimmy Carter and Jesse Jackson.
The website's Chris Morris-like endorsement of the product predicts: "You'll laugh out loud looking at the faces of the world's greatest weasels - each wearing the beret of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard ... the Deck of Weasels is not only great fun, it's also educational".
The rightwing supermarket tabloid, described by Michael Reagan, its columnist and son of the former president, as "the only independent news source in America", is notorious for its sensationalism. American Prospect magazine recently described Newsmax as "a juggernaut of over-the-top tabloid reporting and commentary focusing obsessively on the Clinton scandals".
Mr Reagan's recent attempt to connect his father's legacy with a campaign to stock the nation's libraries with his magazine raised eyebrows on the US political scene. In a letter to readers, Mr Reagan extolled the tabloid as the "only [US news source] prominently promoting the vision of Ronald Reagan".
On the website, Mr Reagan elaborates: "I guarantee that you'll love NewsMax magazine. The liberal media moguls hate NewsMax. Not only does it expose 'liberal' shenanigans without mercy, it's dedicated to making America once again a 'shining city upon a hill'. "
And supplying it with top-grade chauvinistic tat.
