Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for July 28, 2010

Now are you glad that we don’t have SP as VP.

Poor Sam. Looks like she has a ‘wicked witch’ among her toys.

The personality’s right, but the look doesn’t do her justice. Mrs. Palin should sue the toy manufacturer.

Reportedly, immediately after Sarah Palin gave her speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention to accept her nomination for Vice President, the Democratic Party set a record for the largest amount in contributions pledged in a 24-hours period. There should be a lesson in that.

Mr. Potato Head would never attach a child; he’s a tuber not a fighter.

Toy Party.

Some kids have imaginary friends, Sam’s got imaginary enemies, which is something she and the Tea Party have in common.

Regarding “tyranny”…

They keep on using that word…I do not think it means what they think it means…

^Inconceivable!

Really Gary

Killing a kid is what you think Palin is about? Get back to being funny and less of the poisonous liberal political stuff

Really Gary

Killing a kid is what you think Palin is about? Get back to being funny and less of the poisonous liberal political stuff

Really Gary

Killing a kid is what you think Palin is about? Get back to being funny and less of the poisonous liberal political stuff

Is there an echo in here?

Man, I had to read Wikipedia’s interminable summary of TOY STORY 3’s plot. This DOONESBURY story seems a bit weak. Let’s get off the Sarah Palin doll & to more interesting news or more interesting characters.

DUMB DA DUMB, can’t say more.

I love you Sarah Palin. You’re so cute.

Not Gracie Allen cute, or smart.

but wack cute.

And never understand anything you say,

which only adds to the mystery…

And allure.

I look beyond that to your inner soul…

which sparkles like diamonds in diseased

and putrefying flesh.

When Voltaire said, “those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities,” he wasn’t just talking about religion. Although, the Tea Party is quite a bit like a religion… all faith and no fact.

Doesn’t this somehow match the GILF’s hints to subversion/sedition?

No, BrianCrook, let’s keep it going for a couple more weeks. This theme has been very illustrative, but not of Palin. Some Thinking Americans (TM) like pouncingtiger actually believe it’s a true story. Why stop now?

@Spamgaard: Really? Must read Voltaire.

@Potrzebie: I think that’s the case, yes. Maybe not Caribou Barbie in particular, but all these rumblings about a “2nd Amendment Solution” going down…

@jasonate: This isn’t the Bible. You don’t have to read it literally.

In Sarah Palin’s world, Literacy = Tyranny.

“This isn’t the Bible. You don’t have to read it literally.”

Brilliant comment Wildcard

It’s not the Bible, but with the violence GT is tapping into Jewish legend. The magical robot known as the GOLEM can get out of hand and become homicidal, like Frankenstein; nobody but its creator can destroy it. Can’t tell whether GT or BD is responsible for creating this Wasilla golem, but it belongs to folklore, not politics.

The same can be said of GT’s rendering the Tea Bag Party in the distorted archetypes of right-wing patriotism. Trudeau is letting his fantasy stray far from its basis in political reality.

Time to destroy this doll, GT—-or to return it to “Andy” for reprogramming.

I like GT pointing at nutty right wing philosophy. It’s like Action News or my daily rag turning their cameras on a few idiots with crazy hats and misspelled signs (Intentionally?). When you focus on the fringes, you don’t notice what the center is doing in a slow, dull, democratic manner. I saw the Left cheer when Obama used his royal powers to decree an oil moratorium. They felt safe. But the soft spoken center of the right whispered something in Justices ear. “Is it right that the Executive Branch can make a law denying property and the right to work of 20,000 Americans” Justice acts on the suggestion of this little voice and the Constitutional guarantee of the separation of powers is preserved. No tea bags or hand guns needed, except as a diversion for the left and media (redundant) so democracy can work.

What’s rather interesting, it may be an indication of the disdain Garry Trudeau has for Sarah Palin in that he explicitly depicts Palin in this week’s series. Usually, Trudeau represents a prominent figure symbolically when the figure is supposed to be in a scene at all.

However, this is supposed to be happening in an “alternate universe”, so I suppose the character is actually not meant to represent the “real” Sarah Palin.

Lewreader: let’s be a little more careful about actual numbers here. Obama’s moratorium only covered deep-water drilling rigs; shallow-water rigs were not affected. So I did a little research. Seems there are between seven and eight hundred active drilling rigs in the Gulf. That’s actual operating rigs, not holes (there are over 4000 oil wells in the Gulf). 25 of them were affected by the moratorium. That’s about three percent of the total. And it was only a temporary moratorium, not a permanent ban. The claim that the executive order put 20,000 Americans out of work is exaggerated, to say the least.

“puddleglum1006”, don’t confuse the issue with facts.

palin drome, it sounds like what you’re leading to is that GT’s fantasyland portrayals of Palin and the Tea Party have created a much more realistic and amusing caricature of Palin’s detractors than of Palin herself.

Garry has gone into Jonathan Swift mode and has unwittingly placed himself in the irony of his own crosshairs. No wonder so many want him to drop this plotline and move on.

I want Garry to go and walk on a beach. Smell the beautiful air. Hike a mountain. Soak in rain and not worry about deadlines for a couple of weeks. Let ‘em have the re-runs during that period. Then come back rejuvenated and give us the good stuff. This ideological lecturing is becoming quite boring.

Methinks that no one political perspective holds the licence on hyperbole. You prove the point, Ravenswing, when you invented a bit of your own with your “death squads” comment (the correct hyperbole was “death panels”).

There’s no shortage of Kool Aid being passed around, but the real nutballs are those who think they’re drinking champagne while sipping on Wild Cherry.

Remember that this is a doll. Where was it made? Maybe it is a diabolical plot by the manufacturer to hurt our kids, kike the baby formula, kids “Jewelry”, drop side cribs and a multitude of other products. The worst being the injecting of poison into food products bound for export.

As for the oil wells, I would like to see more stringent regulations on all of these wells. That is what the moratorium is for. See what can be done to prevent another such problem. What happened to the blowout protector on the latest rig to start spilling crude into the gulf?

Justice, in a semi-related note, there was such a plot hatched years ago by the BLO (Barbie Liberation Organization), where terrorists were encourgaged to purchase talking Barbie and GI dolls, switch the voice chips, and then return them to stores for a refund in order to get them sold to hapless victims.

Imagine the surprise on Christmas morning when Little Debbie’s Teen Talk Barbie shouted “Vengance is Mine!”.. or when little Bobby’s Combat Ready GI Joe giggled “Let’s plan our dream wedding!”

The BLO terrorists were remarkably well funded and organized. Instructions to do this yourself are at

http://ifaq.wap.org/posters/barbiedir.pdf

but I think that the modern “action figures” have been deliberately constructed to not allow this to happen again.

Justice asks tongue-in-cheek “Where was [this doll] made?” I think the real question, for those of us who (as attyush reminds us) are taking GT’s ideology overseriously, is “For what purpose was the doll created.”

I’ve given a literary answer: GT’s golem has escaped its creator’s control. Translating literary implications into political, I’d say Trudeau is trying too hard to substitute a cartoon world of his own making for the political world of which he can make no sense.

Nothing new here. GT is performing what Aristotle called mimesis: he provides some of his readers with epic escapism, some with dramatic catharsis, and the rest of us (except for stebon/nobets) with satiric detachment.

I wonder if the complaints coming from all three groups, as well as from newcomers like tommytherigger (below), will tear GT away from this embarrassingly miscalculated obsession with mimesis (imitation). He must realize the limits on his powers of cartoon mimesis; as RSRussell noted yesterday, GT really doesn’t know how to draw SP naturally.

For those of you who may like to get rid of your GILF fancies for SP, here’s a pornographic photo of a far more sexy and intelligent older woman:

http://www.headlinerwatch.com/4820/helen-mirren-nude-photo-bare-york-magazine.htm

Lew, have you checked the news? The oil moratorium is still in place. Today, Judge Feldman will hear a motion about his own interest in the case, considering his holdings in Exxon, BP (via Black Rock), & Transocean. Interior Secretary Salazar has issued a revised moratorium.

More important, however, is getting BP &al. to pay for the entire clean-up AND to re-imburse the thousands of folks who last wages & jobs over this, including those affected by the oil moratorium, which Interior put into place in response to Big Oil working under weak regulations.

Equally important is making a greater push to get the world off its addiction to oil, AND to ensure that HUGE precautions are taken before any more drilling is done.

(Thanks, Puddleglum, for correcting Lewreader’s exaggerations.)

Why would this inane story line be published on the comic page? You have a mother, one with a special needs child, killing? What policital position does she hold to be in this strip anyway? Where are the story lines for Rangel (tax dodger, hypocrite) Boxer, Pelosi, you know, people who have power to affect my life, my taxes, my IRA, my estate taxes, illeagal aliens (is it okay for Paki’s, Iranian’s and Yeman’s to c ross the border too?), where are the jobs? Come on, lets roll with a punch story line instead of some assinine obsessed story line about SP who…. what? Oh, only non-liberals for your strip? Please, look what is happening to retirees who used to count on income from CD’s to support their retirement. Where are the liberals getting the money for their programs from…China?Let’s get a timely story line going and not an unfunny, cruel, crazy obsession you have with SP who isn’t touching your life “Mr. Cartoonist”…not currently.

Why would this inane story line be published on the comic page? You have a mother, one with a special needs child, killing? What policital position does she hold to be in this strip anyway? Where are the story lines for Rangel (tax dodger, hypocrite) Boxer, Pelosi, you know, people who have power to affect my life, my taxes, my IRA, my estate taxes, illeagal aliens (is it okay for Paki’s, Iranian’s and Yeman’s to c ross the border too?), where are the jobs? Come on, lets roll with a punch story line instead of some assinine obsessed story line about SP who…. what? Oh, only non-liberals for your strip? Please, look what is happening to retirees who used to count on income from CD’s to support their retirement. Where are the liberals getting the money for their programs from…China?Let’s get a timely story line going and not an unfunny, cruel, crazy obsession you have with SP who isn’t touching your life “Mr. Cartoonist”…not currently.

it’s not GT who’s obsessed with SP – he’s pointing to fundamental fears that her words spawn. Without a SP preparing the way would we be subjected to the outrage that is Sharron Angle?

Angle will do for Nevada what SP has done for Alaska, and anyone deludes themself who thinks that Doonesbury can affect the political outcome.

The purpose of political satire is not to overwhelm your opponents but to brand them with a witty label that amuses your like-minded partisans (and hopefully a few of your opponents, too). Kept up for too long, however, this branding game ceases to appeal to anyone except those who possess no more wit than the infantile SP.

Today’s comments show that the by-now-stale game of Palin-baiting has stirred the dormant wits of normally impassive readers. Let me repeat the stanza by Swift (Sheik quoted it last week) that captures this moronic contagion:

Big fleas have little fleas Upon their backs to bite ‘em; Little fleas have lesser fleas, And so ad infinitem.

billdi, are you saying that SP, Sharron Angle, and the Tea Party are responsible for creating a “fundamental fear” that they advocate choking little girls as they sleep in the name of liberty?

In today’s strip, GT pays homage to like-minded Thinking Americans (TM) like yourself.

Regardless of your political leaning Doonesbury has stepped over the line! The hatred of all things Republican has a toy ordering another toy to kill a child! I will never read anything by this deranged individual again!

Uhhh… Sarah Palin wants to murder children? I can’t stand Palin, but I’m failing to see where Trudeau is going with this storyline. This is just idiotic, and if I’m missing the point, then Trudeau is failing catastrophically to make it.

OH, GO SHOOT A MOOSE!

aircraft, thanks for blaming Bush as a rationalization for GT’s child murder advocacy theme. Someone had to do it! What took you so long?

You’re truly a classic Thinking American (TM).

You can’t make this stuff up. Here’s hoping for another month of Palin in the spotlight.

Temporary… not. A ban lasting as little as 3 months will cause those platforms to be moved. Three have already permanently relocated to other countries. 20,000 is probably not right. Much too low when you figure in support staff and the money those workers won’t spend at local businesses.

Nice separation of powers: a judge found the ban to be overreaching and illegal. So Obama issues another one to restart the clock and force another identical court case. I guess he can just issue it over and over forever, making it permanent.

Say what you will about her, but Sarah Palin would never hurt an innocent kid. She’s pro-life.

YOU ALL NEED TO LEAVE POOR SARA ALONE SO SHE CAN MAKE PLANS TO RULE THE WORLD AND WATCH RUSSIA FROM HER PORCH…

@jack75287

What about that great agnostic who wrote 2200 years ago,

“Human beings and caribou share one and the same fate: death comes to both alike … All go to the same place; all came from the dust, and to the dust all return” (slightly adapted from Eccl. 3).

“Not much of a message,” you say, but only someone lacking GT’s sense of humor would miss its truth, which I admit is ambiguous. “The thoughts of the wise are at home in the house of mourning, but a fool’s thoughts in the house of mirth” (ch. 7).

One day, Doonesbury presents a house of mirth; the next day, a house of mourning. But on its best days, it’s both at once.

sidi, Tina Fey can see Russia from her porch. Sarah Palin said that you can see Russia from an island in Alaska.

I know that the line between make believe and reality is thin for you, which is why today’s strip is so appealing to you, but you haters need to follow the examples of Thinking Americans (TM) on this site and get your facts straight.

FOR THE LOVE OF NANCY!!! IT’S A COMIC STRIP

My take on this one is that it parallels what the black panther guy said that was all over the news just about 2 weeks ago.

BRIAN Thank you for the information. I, unfortunately am only able to read the liberal morning paper as the conservative afternoon one has closed in this blue state. So the Dept of the Interior has the power to over rule the federal Court? That’ executive branch, right? Like the Prez who issued the initial order? I didn’t know that branch made laws, but us right wingers haven’t read the Constitution in a long time. I also notice our morning paper made a big thing of Prez issuing the moratorium. Gave his public humiliation by the court two inches on page six (Where he belongs). Now I’m sure this morning paper (see above) will tell us all of the victory he made today for a green earth Miss that afternoon paper’

Sorry you think BP hasn’t employed the folks of LA. Have you looked at their falling unemployment figures sine the accident. Fishermen and their boats enjoying 100% employment working for who? BP? Thousands of other jobs provided by who? BP? You mean private industry is doing a better job of raising the income level than Nanny government can? Government gives them checks, industry gives them jobs. Good thing there is a Republican in office.

As usual you come up with the standard lefty lies. I believe in Locke and Jefferson. You believe in Engels and Marx. I believe in the individual, you believe in the collective. With what you have read about governments throughout history, you want to give them more power?

BP’s been employing the folks of LA. But not paying them.

Alabama_Al said, Reportedly, immediately after Sarah Palin gave her speech at the 2008 Republican National Convention to accept her nomination for Vice President, the Democratic Party set a record for the largest amount in contributions pledged in a 24-hours period. There should be a lesson in that.

Ken: She is the reason I voted Democratic. I was going to vote Green, but every time she gave a speech my resolve to vote Green grew weaker until two weeks before the election I switched.

Mr. Trudeau is not saying SP is advocating killing children. That is the doll talking……… The doll is the villain here.

Sorry for the late comment.

The dumbest thing about this strip doesn’t have to do with politics.

In Toy Story, the toys were actually aware of what was going on in the human world around them. A sapient Palin doll would be fully aware which member of the family objects to Palin dolls - and it ain’t the kid.