Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Cartoon for July 24

Obama's liberal supporters are wallowing in wishful thinking. Once he gets into office, they tell themselves and everyone else, he'll burst out as a crazy leftie!

Right.

Posted by at

24 comments:

  1. Sean C. LedigJuly 24, 2008 at 4:18 AM

    This kind of wishful thinking isn't anything new.

    Remember Ronald Reagan was once a New Deal-style Democrat. In 1984, I knew a number of so-called educated liberals who expected Reagan to turn on his conservative supporters and become a new FDR during his second term.

    Seriously.

    I was 19 years-old at the time and even I knew that was bullshit.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJuly 24, 2008 at 4:59 AM

    Exactly... as if.

    Obama is nothing more than a spineless politician. At first we didn't know him and that played out rather well for him. But the more he becomes a solid policy; the more I hate him as a person.

    Where I work there are a lot of people with Obama shirts; as if he was a God send to the African American people. God forbid you tell him he is just one of the boys.

    Honestly, I still stand by my first and last decision of who should run America. Colin Powell.

    ReplyDelete
  3. absolva maeJuly 24, 2008 at 5:46 AM

    "I ransacked a dream"....

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJuly 24, 2008 at 8:10 AM

    Gee. Except for the last panel, I thought this was the thoughtful independent's fantasy about McCain's first days in office.

    ReplyDelete
  5. HairheadJuly 24, 2008 at 8:39 AM

    To anonymous #2: Colin Powell? COLIN POWELL??

    Colin (My Lai coverup) Powell?

    Colin (Lying to the UN about Iraq) Powell?

    1) What the hell are you smoking?

    2) Can I have some?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Susan StarkJuly 24, 2008 at 10:12 AM

    Well, what would be so wrong with betraying right-wing promises for a change?

    But with that lunatic nutbag Brzenski as an "advisor", not likely.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Natasha Yar-RouthJuly 24, 2008 at 10:35 AM

    The neo-liberal economic policies that wrecked South America in the '80s and '90s were created by the 'Chicago School'. Guess where most of Obama's economic advisers come from? That's right the 'Chicago School'. Obama's statements on how (not) to deal with the current financial crisis are pure 'Chicago School' neo-liberal.

    ReplyDelete
  8. aJuly 24, 2008 at 11:06 AM

    Obama's from the Illinois machine. He's par for the course. The problem is that Washington can't run a machine like IL can. The wrong people are in command.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Jesus X. CrutchJuly 24, 2008 at 11:19 AM

    Is that Chief of Staff Samanta Powers Sunstein in the third panel? And her s.o. Cass is probably lurking somewhere in this scenario, maybe as A.G. at justice. Yep, it's gonna be like a total change when the best and brightest take over.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Michael P.July 24, 2008 at 11:58 AM

    Once again, pundits on both sides of the aisle are underestimating Obama. While I have no illusions that he is going to be as extreme as this satirical piece suggests, I do feel that he and his administration will work to undo the damage of the last eight years.

    How do I know this? I don't. But the same instinct that told me George W. Bush would make a lousy president in 2000, is telling me the opposite about Obama.

    Obama is one part every-man and one part shrewd politician. He's as close to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington as we'll ever get in this country. Is he perfect? Of course not.

    But let's face it, and as I said in a previous comment, this isn't Sweden. If Obama truly was the "ultra-left" that Faux News makes him out to be, he'd alienate the meat-and-potatoes moderate Democrats and Republicans.

    If we, as Liberals, want to change things in this country we need to take baby steps. There isn't going to be a Leftist Revolution in this country (short of plunging into another depression). If it didn't happen in the 30's and 60's, it sure as hell isn't going to happen now. (Anyone who thinks otherwise is truly delusional, never mind the so-called Obamaniacs!)

    But Obama does represent an opportunity for a New Left to take root and show the Conservatives how to truly govern a nation. That for me is worth the price of admission.

    ReplyDelete
  11. AnonymousJuly 24, 2008 at 1:46 PM

    Sigh. You so are right, Susan. Worshipers of Moloch just want the blood sacrifice. They don't really care who the donor is. They prefer the young but, in a pinch, an exalted elder could become a prime candidate. Alas, poor John, he hath surrounded himself with their priests. I guess he likes the tension... reminds him of the good old days?

    ReplyDelete
  12. DennisJuly 24, 2008 at 2:47 PM

    Attention Obama: read this strip carefully, then plan. Everything but the waterboarding. Okay?

    ReplyDelete
  13. AnonymousJuly 24, 2008 at 4:02 PM

    Ahhh, Brzezinski. Some thing about "Giving Russia it's Vietnam", or something like that. Hmmmm... And speaking of Russia, is anyone surprised that Russia's reaction to the Eastern European Missile Shield is to use Cuba as a base of operations?? AGAIN???? It feels like we're getting the 60's in Time-compressed format. All of it at once. The war, maybe a draft, the trampling of the Constitution, all culminating with the election of Barack Obama. Total proof that the Civil Rights Amendment works, there's no more race problem and pay no attention to the man listening in on your phone calls. Great. The only things missing that could save us is some good hash and The Beatles. To mellow us out and to pull us all back from the edge. Too late for The Beatles, but I think Mr. Karzai is gonna help us out with our other need.Air America, anyone?? Dorme bene...

    ReplyDelete
  14. IncitatusJuly 24, 2008 at 5:32 PM

    Never mind Obamania:

    4 Spitzer Officials Face Ethics Charges

    Now, considering Ted lionized this scumbag, one can forgive Obamaniacs gettings carried away with their superhero.

    ReplyDelete
  15. AnonymousJuly 24, 2008 at 8:55 PM

    Obama: an empty vessel for the left to project their hopes and dreams onto. He's not even a phony; there's just no there there. He beats McCain coming and going, but you can't say much more than that.

    @michael p.: Just about anyone elected this year would undo the negativity of Bush, et al. It will be a long time before we anoint (I hesitate to use the word "elect") a president as bad as Bush fils.

    A nice fantasy, but anything less than "President Kucinich" means there's no chance we'll get one step closer to this than a comic strip.

    ReplyDelete
  16. MaxwellJuly 25, 2008 at 5:47 AM

    Conservatives hate and fear Obama. What else needs to be said?

    ReplyDelete
  17. AnonymousJuly 25, 2008 at 6:44 AM

    I, for one, would fully support permanently waterboarding the entire current administration, AND their families. It's the least we could do.

    As for the rest... i guess Obama sortof lost his luster for me when I went to his website a few months ago and saw he was for expanding the military and keeping significant "training forces" in Iraq.

    But he's STILL the lesser of two evils, sadly. The only hope is actually if McCain wins and the Democratic party is dissolved, and gets replaced by something genuinely Democratic... but thats not going to happen, so maybe there will be a massive economic crisis and all the non-coast republican voters will wake up and discover they've been screwed over for the last 30 years. Yeah, that might do it.

    ReplyDelete
  18. AnonymousJuly 25, 2008 at 7:40 AM

    "Obama's statements on how (not) to deal with the current financial crisis are pure 'Chicago School' neo-liberal."

    Odd you should say that, looking at his economic policies as stated on his website it seems a far cry from Chicago school economics. Do you have some evidence that his spoken policies differ from the ones outlined here?

    Or are you just speculating?

    ReplyDelete
  19. AnonymousJuly 25, 2008 at 9:21 AM

    I don't think classifying our political actors as spineless is particularly accurate. They seem like some of the folks I meet in the neighborhood and only differ in the sense that they are public actors. The spinelessness belongs to those who grant them authority and, either explicitly or collusively, basically think it is okay to form gangs and either enslave others (the twisted monetary control freaks of the Chicago school) or kill them (the imperial military extorting tribute from the dominion).

    In the aggregate, this segment of our "culture" has the intelligence of yeast at work in a brewery. I think the political actors are caught up in the flow of events the day they start running. Getting elected doesn't change that. They go with the flow or get slaughtered existentially or literally.

    It's a huge chunk of the electorate that is basically whacked. A big chunk thinks things are not going well but they still vote for the liars and crooks they think will share some of the loot with them. The pols just shrug and say, "OK. Whatever winds your clock... yadayadayadablahblahblah Now... let's see... lunch then the gym then..." Go figure. Yeast produce a lot of carbon dioxide. Sound familiar?

    If they got tired of this, Ted could concentrate on being an ambassador of good will in the stans. Until then, he has no shortage of material for his day job.

    It matters who gets elected. McCain will have more latitude in the wrong direction. Don't make it too easy for them. Obama or anyone else is not going to be able to perform miracles but he'll have latitude in the other direction. If anyone was serious about cleaning up after Bush, I think it would take four years just to catalog the damage. They'll execute a clumsy crash landing, print some more money and say, "Who knew? I did, of course, but I wasn't the pilot at the time."

    McCain is taking credit for the policies of the last eight years. There is no reason to think he is really going to change course and every reason to think he'll repeat his last combat mission and merrily bomb folks until he ends up in the lake. The man was a POW for eight years. That causes permanent damage. I know folks that were in horrible combat situations decades ago. They are basically okay folk most of the time but they often struggle to maintain their sanity. They know there is a problem. McCain doesn't. That's scary.

    ReplyDelete
  20. AndersJuly 25, 2008 at 3:21 PM

    @michael p.- You're certainly not getting a revolution of any kind if you keep electing officials like Obama and the rest of them.

    Coincidently, I see Obama is also a member of one of those club/societies that almost every politican is in. Not a conspiracy theory, just another good indicator that he's one of the boys, not some radical muslim pinko.

    ReplyDelete
  21. IncitatusJuly 25, 2008 at 6:02 PM

    Never a shortage of ill-informed commentators here. What Natasha Yar-Routh refers to as "neo-liberal economic policies that wrecked South America" were actually (especially in Brazil and Argentina) centrally-planned technocratic policies dished out by somewhat Kynesian bureaucrats. No free-market stuff love lost there, folks!
    What she must have been thinking about, probably because of spoon-fed propagand over Indymedia and suchlike, was the Chilean case. Trouble is, Chile was and still is, through minor ups and downs, the success case in Latin America, both econimcally and socially.
    Of course, what you care about my opinion? I'm just a guy who actually knows these places...

    ReplyDelete
  22. AnonymousJuly 25, 2008 at 6:53 PM

    I say Obama is America's last chance.

    And I don't mean it in some kind of rosy idealism.


    IF he is able to turn the country around and start to undo some of Dubya's damage, maybe we have a chance.

    BUT if he is assasinated (without Gore getting in last second), if he is hamstrung by the government, if he is turned into a Nancy Peloski... Then it ends. The dream of America has failed.


    What we'll have left is a degenerate dictatorship of a plutocracy that pretends to be ideal while it does nothing more than ensure the financial well being of its rich elite for the next three months. If it wages another war financed by debt to profit a dollar for every dime borrowed, so be it. If it turns to slave labor inside America, so be it, we'll sew cheap jeans for the streets of China.


    If Obama is not in, if McCain IS in, if Obama is neutralized, we have to think hard and look within ourselves to do what is right. What is actually our duty as Americans but we know better than to talk about online.

    ReplyDelete
  23. AngeloJuly 28, 2008 at 5:24 PM

    This country is long over due in an economic lesson from the school of hard knocks. Only then will we wise up.
    Like Clinton, Obama will stop this from happening, and will be erased by the next republican spendthrift.

    what is interesting is many conservatives also believe he is a "sleeper". I would not be surprised if some jack-ass shoots his ass.

    although, as of me writing this, a friend reports that a close acquaintance has been appointed "food secretary". Obama's cabinet will grow and eat their own food...
    Hope that doesn't get out...
    oops.

    ReplyDelete
  24. valmontAugust 3, 2008 at 6:54 AM

    Ted, you almost created a great work of biting satire. Then you went and spoiled it with that ham-fisted "AS IF" in the last panel. Isn't one of the cardinal rules of humor not to do your audience's laughing for them?

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)