The Democratic Circus

Here's a bit from Bongo Comics, makers of fine Simpsons comics (and Futurama).

Your Weekly Rush

First of all, lets get one thing out of the way. There's no possible way President Bush is going to lose in 2004. It's flat impossible. At least that's what the GOP would prefer you to believe.

Second, if anybody were to win, it wouldn't be that hypocrite Wesley Clark. You see back in 2001, Clark said some positive things about President Bush, as well as former President Reagan. And now in 2003 he is running against President Bush. What a hypocrite. How can a person praise President Bush at a Lincoln's Birthday Celebration in 2001 (April 11) and then run again him after September 11th, after he led the United States army into Iraq with no exit strategy and after the economy stayed in the doldrums for his entire presidency.

Rush, in his not so subtle way, tries to make supporting President Bush a sign of a moral core. "The program observer asked how Clark could do this kind of 180 and we worked it out in the audio link below. I don't disagree that Clark doesn't have a core, because if he can switch on a dime like this he can't be that committed." Spinning on a dime, to Rush, apparently means changing your opinion over two and a half fairly eventful years. That's a damn big dime.

But lest you be cocerned, remember, President Bush will win in 2004, and there is nothing we can do about it. Or so the GOP would like you to believe.

Bushisms

You probably all know about this also, but check out this list of Bushisms. I thought that we were done with that after September 11, but thank goodness we aren't.

Most telling --> "I'm also not very analytical. You know I don't spend a lot of time thinking about myself, about why I do things."—Aboard Air Force One, June 4, 2003

Recall Madness

This is your brain. This is your brain on recall. Any Questions?

Well it's been a little while since we checked in with what people are saying about the recall, so lets' do that.

Yet Monday, after donating a breathtaking $1.6 million to the recall effort, Issa announced that if two Republicans -- Arnold Schwarzenegger and state Sen. Tom McClintock -- remain on the replacement ballot, and if it looks as if Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante will win the race, Californians should vote "no" on the recall.

There goes the pretense, uttered more in faux sorrow than anger by recall-istas, that their civic-minded goal was to replace Davis with someone better, and it didn't matter from which party.
Debra Saunders

"The recall, in my opinion, undermines the accountability of voters, telling them in effect that they can have a do-over whenever they mess things up by electing the wrong guy. Well, I'm sorry. As I've said before, the people of California elected Gray Davis and now they must be punished.

That may sound like a joke, but it's actually a central tenet of democracy. Politicians and parties must be held accountable for their past mistakes if they are going to be relied upon to fulfill their promises in the future. Recalling Gray Davis might teach him a lesson, but so what? Gray Davis is destined to be working at a Fotomat anyway."
Jonah Goldberg

"I took a lot of calls on McClintock and Arnold, and people for the most part feel that supporting him [McClintock] is "throwing their vote away," or that they won't vote for him until he closes the gap some. Even e-mailers who think McClintock won the debate say, "But that didn't move his poll numbers, so it didn't move me." I'm not trying to push any candidate here, and I understand the talk of incrementalism. I just don't understand why so many people think McClintock is great yet won't vote for him. And don't give me this business that California isn't a conservative state. Reagan won there, as did George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson - who didn't exactly have star power"
Rush Limbaugh

"So you can’t say there wasn’t serious debate; you just had to ignore the celebs if you wanted to hear it. The Sacramento Bee notes the upshot was that the debate did for Gray Davis what he has trouble doing for himself: made him look like a competent governor. After all, if Schwarzenegger is going to stage an evening of zingers and close with the rallying cry, “I need a lot of help,” maybe we should ask Davis to stick around."
Eric Alterman

I don't know how this happened, but I just don't care anymore. This story used to be so much fun, but now, it's just a death spiral until they reelect Colonel Dumpy again (by failing to recall him).

Tom The Dancing Bug and Intellectual Property

In honor of my beliefs about not ripping of intellectual property, I'm not going to rip off the latest Tom the Dancing Bug. But I am going to provide a link, and suggest that you check it out. Harvey Richards, Lawyer for Children, takes on this tricky legal area, and I'm sure you'll agree he puts it all in perspective.

You do have to watch some sort of add--but it also provides you access to the whole site which includes an article on Neil Gaiman.

Pretending to See the Future

Well, Ben Shapiro is back to his old game of Prognosticating. Yep, now he is predicting that Hillary Clinton will join the Democratic ticket as Vice President in 2004, and that is why they are pushing Wesley Clark.

Note that young Ben offers no proof whatsoever to support his claim; also note the authorititive tone that young Ben takes. "That's why Hillary and Bill are backing Wesley Clark. They want Clark to win the nomination in a landslide. To that end, they've stacked Clark's campaign with former Clinton cronies. They've made it clear that the general is their man. Here's the quid pro quo: They want Hillary to get the vice presidential slot on Clark's 2004 ticket."

See these aren't the words of a man who is speculating on what might happen. These are the words of a man who knows exactly what is happening now and what will happen in the future. What further proof of Shapiro's mystical awareness do you need?

We'l have to see what the future actually holds; perhaps Wesley Clark won't get the nomination. Perhaps he won't select Hillary as his running mate (a strategy that has as many drawbacks as it does bonuses). We'll have to see.

Free Association

Well, Walter Williams is at it again. Once again making constitutional arguments that bear no resemblance to reality. In his latest piece he once again tangles the sticky issue of Freedom of Association. Basically it's OK for us all to be racist if we want to.

"Or, suppose you want to be in my club, but neither my fellow club members nor I want you. The question is, how much do we Americans value freedom of association?"

You see all we, as a society, have to to do to privitize everything, and then we can get back to Jim Crow. Why not? If no federal money is going to a restaurant, why shouldn't the restaurant be allowed to put up a sign saying "No Blacks?" According to Walter Williams (who, for those of you who don't know, is black), nothing. Remind me again, which of the two parties wants to privitize everything?

It would be nice if Williams at least pretended to understand that racism against Blacks still existed, but perhaps for him it doesn't. He's making plenty of money telling Whites it's ok to discriminate against Blacks, and isn't that the American Dream?

Perhaps I ought to get off my high horse for a moment, and admit that Williams has a valid point about the right not to associate; but you cannot make a statement like that without also looking at all the ramifications of it, unless your point is to ignore those ramifications.

The New York Times Editorial Page

Three Editorials there today. The first, by David Brooks, argues that the rebuilding of Iraq is to important to be in the hands of "foreign policy types, who are trained to think too abstractly to grapple with the problems that matter."

The second, by Danielle Pletka, argues that those who are calling for more troops in Iraq are wrong. She appears to be a little off of what the Administration is asking for today; but she is where they were three weeks ago.

The third, by Goran Rosenberg, is about how Sweden long seen as a triumph of Socialism (one of the very few), is falling apart.

What was that they were saying about Liberal Bias? (To be fair there is an article about President Bush's EPA official facing tough questions).

Republicans Need Women

Dennis Prager has a novel sociological theory he'd like to share. Women who get married vote Republican. Single Women do not. Married Women have husbands to take care of them and so don't need the government to take care of them. Married women are also more mature, and so vote Republican.

And some people think that Republicans are sexist.

But of course, here at Make me a Commentator!!!, we know that Dennis Pragers views are his own and are not necessarily a reflection of all Republicans.

Slow Day

Had the day off, and so didn't post much--sorry about that. But to make up, here's some panels from the great Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean comic, Black Orchid. Gaiman achieved later popularity with Sandman, but this was the first comic of his I read, and I loved it. It wasn't until years later that I found out he wrote it.

The panels are from Black Orchid's visit to Arkham Asylum, a classic Batman locale. Enjoy!

Juxtoposition

If you pop up the MSNBC news you recieve the tragic news that there's been another Bomb in Baghdad and on the left you see that President "Bush to push ‘faith-based’ programs."

It's a funny old world.

Quotes

Hey It's Quotes.

We got Quotes.

Quotes for everybody.

Well, Quote for everybody.

Enjoy!