President Gutsy Call rides again
Hey. Well. So Obama took a stand on gay marriage that may or may not be slightly more popular than unpopular nationally, will make the people who were going to vote for him anyway somewhat happier with him, will make people who will never vote for him somewhat unhappier with him and won’t affect actual law or policy in any way.
Surely I can get a good post out of that.
No?
Huh.
May 9, 2012 — 9:18 pm
Comments: 31
Julia, a tragedy in twelve acts
I confess — I feel more than a twinge of sympathy for the stupid drone (or, more likely, committee of drones) who came up with this Julia thing. I’ve done a thousand crappy educational slideshows just like it. Everything looks fine in bullet point form on the memo, and nobody spots the flaws, unintended messages and double entendres until it goes live and singes everyone’s eyebrows off.
The brief: show how Obama’s policies benefit women throughout their lives (do please stress the woman thing; they’re pushing that at the moment). Hey, I know, let’s take one woman — we’ll call her Julia — and look at a dozen points in her life when our policies could help her out. Easy peasy, light and breezy.
But once you string the whole thing together, it becomes the sad story of a woman with no face, no friends, no family. No lover, no husband, a son begat of turkey baster (who gets on a bus one day and is never seen again). She’s a gormless thing who needs a government handout at every turn. It takes her seven years to get a degree and then she takes a low-paying job that doesn’t require one. And when she’s old and her codin’ days are done, she hoes beans for free in a communal veg plot. Alone.
Oh, and apparently Obama is president for seventy years.
The problem with most of the programs in the slideshow is that they’re either small amounts, narrowly targeted beneficiaries or both. With the exception of education and Social Security — and nobody believes Obama or anybody else has got those licked — Julia gets a small amount of free stuff almost nobody gives a shit about. There’s absolutely fuck-all to be passionate about here.
F’rexample, the only people who care about the cost of birth control pills are women of childbearing age who want them. And women of childbearing age who want to be on the pill are the exact people who know that the pill isn’t very expensive or hard to get. Because, you know, they’re buying them now.
To the barricades, Comrades! The Romney/Ryan budget could cut programs like the Small Business Administration by 20%!
Oh, that poor Flashmonkey. Good weekend, all!
May 4, 2012 — 10:15 pm
Comments: 28
Barry O’Badass
US President Barack Obama described the lonely decision he made to mount a Navy SEAL raid to kill Osama bin Laden and called the daring escapade the “most important single day” of his tenure.
In an interview to be broadcast later Wednesday, Obama talked about the nerve jangling moments he endured as he watched the operation, the cloak of secrecy that enveloped it and the moment he saw a photo of the dead Al-Qaeda leader.
“I did choose the risk,” Obama told NBC News anchor Brian Williams, in the latest episode of a nearly week-long commemoration of the anniversary of the bin Laden killing.
Oh, my giddy aunt! A week-long commemoration?
May 2, 2012 — 8:56 pm
Comments: 39
Oh, how I love the easy ones
Oh, THANK you, Obama for your wonderful ham-handedness. In case you missed it in the comments, here is the new Forward logo in white on black and here it is black on white. Traced from the video, so it’s pretty close. These are probably big enough to roll your own t-shirts and bumper stickers, but I can supply other sizes or formats (including .psd) should anyone require.
Hm. It just occurred to me — “forward” is another way to say “stay the same.” A neat bookend to the “change” slogan of 2008, no?
Speaking of stupid, Obama could have had days of positive coverage on the anniversary of the bin Laden raid, without a peep of partisan dissent — if only he could’ve played it like a grownup. But no, he had to go and imply that Romney wouldn’t be man enough to, um, return a phone call. Handing Romney a personally autographed permission slip to utter the bestest one-liner of the political season:
Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order.
Grossly unfair to Jimmy Carter, but it was wicked funny. Also, fuck it — Jimmy Carter.
Errors not so funny: is it a good idea to observe the anniversary of OBL’s death in Afghanistan? Even the Afghanis inclined to approve of us and disapprove of him can’t be filled with joy at the killing of a co-religionist. People take these things personally. And the Talibunnies must be fucking furious.
I admit, I’m lost in the regional/sectarian nuances of the Ummah, but this strikes me as a gesture that makes lives in danger more endangered.
May 1, 2012 — 10:26 pm
Comments: 27
Happy Walpurgisnacht, we-yotches!
Happy Walpurgis Night! It’s exactly six months from Hallowe’en, and you know what that means — Witches’ Sabbath!
It’s a Northern European thing. Bonfires. Witches. The usual.
It’s named after Saint Walpurga (or Walburga), who wasn’t a witch or on fire or anything (and she sure isn’t the lady in the middle of that picture — what is that woman doing to that poor goat?). Pure coincidence Walpurga was canonized on May 1.
So it’s another one of those, “witches? wait, what? Oh, nonono, Father, you misunderstand. We aren’t celebrating our ancient pagan customs. We’re piously observing…ummm…Saint Whatsername’s Day. Um, Walburga — yeah, that’s it!”
Unrelated things that happened today which amused me: Lefties ganging up on Righties, reporting them as spammers to get their feelthy ‘winger accounts auto-blocked on Twitter.
Pasty blond blue-eyed Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren was listed as a minority faculty member at Harvard in the Nineties, based on undocumented family legends she had Native American ancestors (the Boston Herald helpfully describes them as her “maternal parents”). Dear Miz Warren: EVERY FAMILY IN AMERICA TELLS THIS STORY ABOUT ITSELF.
And the Obama campaign released a new video today and announced its 2012 slogan. Are you ready? Forward.
No, that’s it: Forward. I don’t even think they sprang for the exclamation point.
Forward.
Mmmm mmmm — can you smell the t-shirts?
April 30, 2012 — 7:06 pm
Comments: 56
World exclusive!
“I promise you,” Biden said, “the President has a big stick.
This is Joe Biden, after all, so we can’t be sure if he meant, “Barack Obama is unafraid to command the full might of the US military” or “black mens sho’ has big penises.”
That’s what I love about our Vice President.
Alrighty then. Here. Tomorrow. Six sharp, WBT. Dead Pool: Round 28.
April 26, 2012 — 10:11 pm
Comments: 22
Cringeworthy
Wow. That was embarrassing. At least the RNC has managed to make a little hay with it.
I’m sure this is one of those political Rorschach thingies, where Team Obama thinks it’s charming and Team AnybodyBut thinks it’s beneath the dignity of the office. But 2008 is not 2012 and, stepping back, if it’s a choice between the cool guy and the competent guy, I bet competent wins.
I think I stole that last line, but I’ve read so many blogs today, I don’t remember where.
April 25, 2012 — 9:35 pm
Comments: 21
A tale of two presidents
I love this picture. It’s awesome when I don’t even have to Photoshop ’em.
Yeah, I’ve seen the caption about the Colombian hookers, but I think this picture is even funnier all by itself. It so nails these two guys.
I’m a charter member in the Bill Clinton H8ters of America, but I’ll give him this — dude loved being president. LOVED it. Remember his last day, Bush’s inauguration, and Clinton was in some hangar somewhere giving a farewell speech that dragged on and on and on until it was like one of those twelve-hour Castro TV performances where nobody could change the channel and people were dropping like flies?
When Bill left office, he left claw marks.
Now look at Obama’s face. Look at it and think about how deeply you have disappointed this man. Yes, you. You and your stubbornness and your ignorance and your inability to appreciate the awesomeness of Barack Obama.
Honestly, you people are lucky he’s even considering giving you another term.
Meanwhile, Pablo snagged the dick fair and square with Chuck Colson. You know what that means? See you Friday!
April 23, 2012 — 10:21 pm
Comments: 24
Dog. It’s what’s for dinner.
Oh, yeah — like I was going to let THIS one go! (In color, if anyone needs it. Help yourself).
Backstory. In 1983, the Romney family drove to Canada on vacation. It was a twelve-hour drive, and Romney strapped their dog Seamus to the roof in a carrier for the whole trip.
Okay, that’s a little weird. I guess. But the media has been rolling around in it like…well, like a dog in shit.
Aides to President Barack Obama mischievously circulated a photograph of the Commander-in-Chief and his dog Bo sitting the back of a presidential SUV. “How loving owners transport their dogs,” tweeted David Axelrod, Mr Obama’s top strategist.
In one of the running jokes of the American political world, New York Times columnist Gail Collins is said to have developed a borderline obsession with the Seamus story, mentioning the dog more than 50 times in columns and interviews.
Oh, seriously. On and on and on for months. There have been focus groups and phone polls and the lot. Big effing deal, as Biden would say.
So Jim Treacher — the scamp! — pipes up and says, “but Obama ate dog!” And it’s true. It’s right there in Dreams from my Next Door Neighbor, or whatever that book was.
“With Lolo, I learned how to eat small green chill peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and, away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy).
And away went Twitter.
WE HAVE A WINNER! Dick Clark has passed into that great Sock Hop in the sky. That’s FGW for the win! See you Friday for the next round of Celebrity Dead Pool!
April 18, 2012 — 1:56 pm
Comments: 95
Wanna see my credentials, little man?
My guess is, Hilary Rosen was sent out there to imply with sly subtlety that Mitt Romney’s wife is a snooty rich bitch who never had to trouble herself about the things us ordinary mortals worry about. Instead, she blurted out “Ann Romney has actually never worked a day in her life“ — in one swell foop, alienating every stay-at-home mom in the country.
Also, stepping slap in the middle of Obama’s pink frosted Republican War on Women meme with shit-covered army boots. Hee hee.
Admittedly, stay-at-home moms are a more right-leaning than left-leaning constituency these days, but they’re by no means monolithically wealthy. And there are bound to be some precious Independents in that demo.
My life choices have hewn closer to Sandra Fluke’s than June Cleaver’s, and it still sets my teeth on edge whenever Democrats presume theirs is the legitimate Voice of Woman. If it makes ME crazy…?
Have a good weekend, folks!
April 13, 2012 — 10:47 pm
Comments: 37