Obama Throws Shepard Fairey And His Iconic 'Hope' Poster Under The Bus in Search of New Paradigm For 2012: No More 'Sexy' Time

Shepard Fairey / AP

Obama says no more 'Hope.'

President Obama has graying hair, Osama Bid Laden and Moammar Gadhafi are dead, and people are, to quote the Facebook meme, now blaming "the black guy" for George W. Bush's Great Recession.

Times have changed so much that Obama had to acknowledge a new era at a fund-raiser last night at the Hancock Park home of movie producer James Lassiter.

This isn't the occasion for optimistic street art, apparently, so L.A.'s own Shepard Fairey need not apply to the reelection campaign's marketing office.

Obama:

... This election will not be as sexy as the first one. Back then, it was still fresh and new. I didn't have any gray hair. Everybody loved the `Hope' posters and all that.

Damn, did the prez just throw Fairey under the bus? And after the L.A. street artist's poster become the graphic brand of Obama's 2008 campaign? After Fairey had to endure a lawsuit by AP over the photograph he used for the poster?

Thanks a lot Commander-in-Chief.

Guess Fairey's going to have to go back to the drawing board for something meaner and more pessimistic -- an image reflective of the polarizing times in which the Occupy nation faces off against the Tea Party to determine who really represents everyman and woman.

Maybe Obama should be giving us an arms-folded shrug with the message, "COPE -- it's not my fault."

The president:

This time, we've got to grind it out a little bit. We've got to grind it out. But the cause is the same. And my passion is the same. And my commitment is the same.

Still, we lament the end of 'Hope.'

-With reporting from City News Service. Got news? Email us. Follow us on Twitter, too: @dennisjromero.