Whitehouse.org - Humor and Themes

Humor and Themes

The website's purpose is to satirize the administration, their supporters and their politics using farce. .

One of the common strategies of the site is to publish news satire via fake press releases following a real event concerning the administration or its prominent supporters. Each fake press release purports to be the transcript of a speech, the minutes of a conversation or meeting, or an official governmental document. Each is accompanied by a severely doctored photograph providing a fictional visual scene for the occurrence. For example, after (in reality) Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court came under scrutiny for being a "hunting buddy" of U.S. Vice Pres. Dick Cheney while the Court was considering a case of Cheney's, Whitehouse.org included a fake dual statement titled "Joint Statement by Vice President Cheney and Justice Scalia Vigorously Defending the Propriety of Their Extracurricular Commingling" and accompanied with a false image of Cheney and Scalia together in a hot tub.

The authors depict the administration and their supporters as greedy, arrogant, overtly egotistical, culturally ignorant, nepotist, misogynist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic power-hungry warhawks who have absolutely no regard for any privacy or human rights other than their own. In keeping with those characterizations, women and ethnic and religious minorities who are in or favor the administration are ironically portrayed as unquestioning flock in (relatively) low-level job positions and who the caucasian men of the administration dislike but keep around for support. For example, former U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norm Mineta is listed as the "Chauffeur" and unfeatured anywhere but the list of members of the administration, while Justice Clarence Thomas of the U.S. Supreme Court is listed as the "Best Boy" and is fictionally quoted responding little if at all to any questions unrelated to pornography. U.S. Secy. of State Condoleezza Rice is an exception to the rule, but one of the aforementioned posters fictionally quotes her exclaiming, "I'm fighting for WHITEY!" Also in keeping with the themes, a spoof of the Seal of the President of the United States, with the bald eagle replaced with a vulture, appears on each webpage.