Pat Oliphant for January 22, 2013

Teddy Roosevelt would use the “big stick” on both Boehner and McConnell.

Where did that one-term presidency go Mr. McConnell?

I think my views are shared by many other supporters of the President who helped elect him to his second term. We don’t want him to compromise with the Republicans, we want him to stand up to them, back them down, divide them so that they’ll either have to move back towards the center or be politically dead. Hopefully at that point the Democrats will form a right and left wing and work towards representing everyone’s interests and find that middle ground upon which true democracy depends. The Republicans have moved from right of center to the lunatic fringe and since Reagan, have done everything they could to destroy the middle class and transfer all wealth to the 5% of the population who control most of the wealth in this country already. On the social front they want to move backwards to the days when everyone knew their places; white men in charge and in power, women in the kitchen, negroes at the back of the bus, gays in the closet, and dissenters silently cringing in fear in the hinterlands. It’s not hard to believe that these extremists in the House of Representatives would bring back slavery if they could. When President Obama took office four years ago their avowed goal was to destroy his presidency and if they took the country down with him, so be it. They had lost the election after a disastrous 8 years of the W. Bush presidency in which the country was nearly bankrupted and our credibility destroyed around the world and acted as if they had a mandate. They lied, slandered, and vilified Mr. Obama in a treasonous, poisonous manner. We sat by horrified as the President was called a liar during the State of the Union address by a representative of the old Confederacy, which by the way, Romney pretty much swept and without which he would have had about 70 electoral votes. So the Republicans can pretty much be accurately described as the party of racism and discrimination, and in my opinion, they could have run Charlie Manson or any other white person for President and he would have carried those Southern states. They’ve tried to rig the elections and disenfranchise the poor and elderly, and these knuckle dragging reactionaries, bag men for big corporate interests, whores to the 35,000 lobbyists running around D.C. have practiced the art of Russian negotiation, best described as: we want everything and if you give us everything we want more. The President should compromise with these haters of democracy and inclusion? Most of the economic gains in the past decade have been by those that already have the most, isn’t that true? We elected him to get some of that back for us hard working people who aren’t ruthless enough to steal it as the corporations have done with impunity for decades or to have been born to wealth and influence like the Romneys and W’s of the world. I’m an Independent in outlook and I vote for the candidate, not the initial, and I recognize the urgency to have a true two party system, but passing off the lunatic fringe as a legitimate party gives no room for anything but fighting back with every means available, or the middle class and upward mobility is history in this country.

Mass grave unearthed. . .Ideological cleansing suspected. . .

I’m neither a Dem nor a Lib. My points of view don’t fit neatly into any ideology and I don’t agree with anyone about everything. I reserve the right to form my own views on every issue and I’ve always been a wild card in any group to which I’ve belonged. I view name calling (and labelling) as fit for a kindergarten schoolyard so onguard, why don’t you present your point of view, how you see things instead of just making a silly statement that does nothing in the way of making an argument. Does your response simply reflect the simple-mindedness of the Rush Limbaugh school of vitriol, or do you have well thought out positions that you can present in a civil and coherent fashion? President Obama inherited a catastrophic mess and in four years the stock market, housing market, job markets have improved and my point is that if the Republicans had worked with him things would be much better for everyone instead of just the elite 5%. And according to you, that’s all wrong, and so tell us your narrative on things and then perhaps there can be a meaningful and productive dialogue, okay?

All those elephants died of indigestion after drinking the Tea Party kool-aid.

^I refer you to one line from above..“so onguard, why don’t you present your point of view, how you see things instead of just making a silly statement”

no one is asking for your guns. i’m an ex-nra member because of the ridiculous stance they have on assault weaponry. the joke about ‘if you need over 10 bullets to shoot a deer, you should get rid of your gun, not ask for more bullets.’ makes a lot of sense to me. too many nutcases are armed and unless you are well-trained, those loonies with weapons will probably kill you with your own!

It wish people would not write a book for comments. For you obama fans did not congress just delay the pay raises that obame just passed. Sorry you people are in a dream world creating government job to lower unemployment is not the way to go.

No I don’t know the rest. You take me back to my days in kindergarten; you’re a poopy head, no I’m not, you’re a poopy head, oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah, yeah. What’s your version of things? Where is my narrative off target? Is the middle class thriving? Did the Republicans not say that their mission was to destroy Obama’s presidency? Have the economic gains not been made almost exclusively by the wealthiest segment of our society? Has the stock market not made a tremendous recovery in the past four years? What you’re putting forth in this little blog makes you look stupid and uneducated and I’m sure you’re a brilliant thinker and reasoner so enlighten us ducks. Was W’s presidency a stupendous success and are you part of the 28% who approved of him at the end of his term? If so, tell the rest of us how we’re wrong in thinking he was the worst President in our history. I would not like to think that you’re a monosyllabic, brainless troll, so let’s hear something intelligent from you.

Mitt Romney was supposed to prevent this from happening, but all he ended up doing was stripping the tusks and selling the ivory to China.

Regarding this cartoon, I find it curious that I drew one very much like it back in 1974 following the Watergate scandal (I was then staff cartoonist for my college newspaper). The Republican party seemed like a dying (or dead) organization, but it renewed itself and triumphed six years later. As a life-long Democrat, I agree with NY Times columnist Tom Friedman that America needs a revitalized, vigorous Republican party — not the brain-dead fools who are currently in charge, denying science, spouting paranoia, obsessed with tax cuts, forcing their fundamentalist religion on us and ignoring changing demographics.

If only this kind of elephant would end up extinct, like the mastodons and mammoths.

Re the comic — I kinda like the look of it:)