Conservative magazine mocks Penn student shirt

The Penn student-developed "Disarm Bush" T-shirt and billionaire Democratic contributor George Soros are the newest targets for conservative magazine National Review.

The latest issue of the right-wing publication features Soros holding a shirt -- which has an image of President George W. Bush with a red "no" symbol over him -- emblazoned with a slogan saying, "I spent $27 million and all I got was this lousy T-shirt!"

But even though the cover mocks Democrats, Disarm Bush company members are far from offended.

"I think it's funny," College senior and T-shirt distributor Ben Piven said. "I understand that it's making fun of the fact that [Soros] lost out. ... He put so much effort in, and all he gets is a reminder that a lot of people did care."

Piven and others involved with the anti-Bush shirts have always claimed that they are political activists as well as businessmen and that the shirts are a method of raising awareness. They have therefore taken the view that any publicity is good publicity, regardless of the magazine's content.

"We want it to appear in as many places as it can," Engineering senior and shirt distributor Matt Scullin said. "If anything, they are acknowledging these anti-Bush movements do exist."

Both Piven and Scullin said they thought the cover would actually help their business, though in different ways. Scullin noted that the magazine tied their company and Soros together.

"It's giving credit to the very wide anti-Bush movement that exists outside of the Democratic Party," he said. "I think one of the most important parts is how it links our shirts and this independent anti-Bush movement to George Soros' anti-Bush movement."

The issue could also help with the company's post-election marketing strategy, as a decline in sales looks likely. Piven said he finds the cover encouraging because it may appear to many as a celebrity endorsement -- which he predicts will be an important step for the business.

"We're trying to get certain key liberal people on our side," he said. "The success of our T-shirt is dependent on major liberal figures embracing our shirt. We would like Michael Moore, George Soros or Eminem to adopt our shirt as their personal icon for the next four years."

The future for Disarm Bush lies in a greater range of products, such as posters and stickers, but also in continuing to sell shirts as they always have, particularly at rallies and protests. Distributors even plan to tap the wide anti-Bush sentiment abroad.

"We'd like to expand overseas, to western Europe," Piven said. "That's where Bush's approval ratings are very low and tons of people are guaranteed to buy the shirt. We definitely have a market out there -- it's a matter of having the time and the happenstance."

The Disarm Bush vendors were just as upset as any loyal Democrat with the outcome of the election, and they intend to maintain their activism through company growth until they receive the result they want.

"Many people were seriously depressed in the outcome of the election," Piven said. "We have four more years of critique. It's not the icon of victory yet."

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