Ad Agency Tries to Create Official Obamessiah Gang Sign

You better be careful where you are if you start throwing this around:

George Bush had his three-fingered W salute that supporters flashed when greeting him at presidential campaign events in 2000. And now, if a Los Angeles creative agency gets its way, Sen. Barack Obama will see fans meet him with his own salute like the one above. "Our goal is to see a crowd of 75,000 people at Obama's nomination speech holding their hands above their heads, fingers laced together in support of a new direction for this country, a renewed hope, and acceptance of responsibility for our future," says Rick Husong, owner of The Loyalty Inc. Husong tells me that he got the idea after seeing the famous Obama-Progress poster by artist Shepherd Fairey. "We wanted to get involved some way," he says. So, the agency came up with their own a symbol of hope and progress that also plays off Obama's name. "We thought, 'Let's try and start a movement where even while walking down the street, people would hold up the O and you would know that they were for Obama,' " says Husong. Much thought went into the relatively simple idea. "You interlace your hands in a circle, the interlacing being a symbol of different types of people coming together and the circle a symbol of unity," he says. Their design, unlike Fairey's, is free, and Husong is urging people to download it and print it on posters and T-shirts. "We want to see it everywhere, but more importantly we want this sign to take the world by storm."

There are many areas in the country that may be full of Obama supporters, but if you start flashing this sign at people on the street they're just as likely to shoot you as to salute back. Flashing hand signs in the hood is a good way to find yourself on the wrong side of an evening news story.

UPDATE: Gateway Pundit tells us where the Official Obamessiah Gang Sign came from:

The new Obama salute was stolen from Star Trek's "Space Hippies" episode:

Groovy. Far out, man. You can see the YouTube video here.

UPDATE 2 - a reader of Michelle Malkin's has a further explanation (language warning):

“In American sign language, the sign for ‘asshole’ is the circle formed with one hand. The new Obama sign can mean only one thing: ‘Big Asshole.’ If the sign fits…”