Pat Oliphant for April 16, 2012

If they’d been willing to pay for their ‘entertainment’, it might not have become such a kerfluffle…

And if they earned their salaries they would put a stop to the nonsensical mindset prevalent in government offices that “We have to spend everything in our budget or we won’t get the same money next year.” That is one of the most outrageous sources for wasted taxpayer monies that exists. (I can’t imagine citizens running their household budgets with that theory!)

enron had those orgies/parties every quarter for their execs. tyco ceo/chairman blew millions of his company’s money for his wife’s birthday. navy had tailhook. young republicans had soirees at a bdsm club in west hollywood. and, fox had those parties where the employees and pols had to kiss ozzie murdocks ring (hand and brown) on his yacht.

Harry Truman had a solution for this: “A few swift kicks the the right asses.” (Ever notice how much bigger Harry’s right leg was than his left?)

I looked forward to Oliphant’s cartoon about this, and I’m not disappointed. I assume it’s too late to take the philanderer’s advice from “Guide for the Married Man,” and “Deny, deny, deny”?

It’s kind of rare these days to see cartoons of nekkid women in the mainstream press, even to this merely suggestive extent. It used to be quite common in The New Yorker and even Popular Mechanics and Mad Magazine up until the 1960s. Would anyone agree that the last daily strips to do this were L’il Abner and Beetle Bailey? Could be wrong. I guess photos have taken their place.

Personally, I find the cartoons more titillating (wink, wink). A tip of the hat to anyone here who can remember what similarly suggestive line Tony Randall said to Jayne Mansfield in “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?”

Oliphant nailed this story!

One thing’s certain: ALL of the outrage that this behavior provokes will be feigned. The Right will feign outrage, Obama will feign outrage… “We are shocked — SHOCKED — to discover that these men have been consorting with prostitutes!” Meanwhile, the rest of the world is given yet another opportunity to marvel at American naïveté when it comes to sex.

Well, OK, I can think of one class of people whose outrage will be genuine: The agents’ wives and girlfriends.

The Secret Service and the military consorting with prostitutes. Good grief, who saw that coming?

MY concern is that some of the prostitutes could have been spies. Otherwise……to kind of round up here: Private businesses and their departments try to spend all their money so they get the same budgets next year (they therefore “prove” they need that much money in their departments). Jack Abramoff’s scandals were much worse than “mere” orgies (I somehow can’t picture Tom Delay at an orgy, only at crime scenes where his crimes are taking bribes at the speed of light.) As for nudity in the comics, I remember Moonbeam McSwine besides Daisy Mae from “Li’l Abner”, but I don’t remember “Beetle Bailey’s” having any, except maybe small pictures of Killer’s pinups on the barracks walls. Probably “Doonesbury” has had some, what with Duke’s penchant for hookers.

and @ 1opinion Okay, this is what happens when I try to multitask with my one-track mind (which sometimes derails)!I was following the GSA/Las Vegas scandal on the internet and clicked over to this cartoon. My muddled mind confused the two and I thought I was referring to the GSA.My bad!But the principle remains the same about “Let’s spend all the money in the budget so that it won’t be reduced next fiscal year!”That [barnyard epithet] has to stop! And the sooner the better!