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Radio silence
I might be taking a few days off, possibly the rest of the week. No, it has nothing to do with the election; I already addressed that the other day.
As my friend Tom Tomorrow would say, real life happens.
"The Haitian Cartoon Crisis"
Pollak's Theory of Editorial Cartoon Sucktitude: the greater a tragic news story, the lamer and less sincere the editorial cartoon about it. When you have an earthquake that kills hundreds of thousands of people, the crappiness destroys all previous charts. 9/11 had better cartoons than this, and I imagine in a lot of cases it's because American cartoonists actually felt something about their country instead of a quick and easy way to meet a deadline.
Sympathy cartoons are the poison of the political cartoon industry: a moment when cartoonists from across the nation collectively pretend they really liked that celebrity, really felt that a country was in dire straits, and have always wanted to give blood. But more than that, they realize a a quick teardrop on a picture of an eagle means they can leave early and avoid traffic. As you can imagine, I have few friends in this industry.
The cartoon referenced in the last panel is real. Someone drew it. It exists. I could not possibly make that up.
Buy some crap and join the mailing list. And come join the public Facebook page for the strip.
Democrats all the way down
Martha Coakley is going to lose tomorrow. Badly. I really wish that wasn't the case, but I also wish I had a pony, and by that Pony is the name of my supermodel girlfriend.
But I digress: this e-mail from TPM caps off the finishing point of what has been a years-long disaster culminating in a right-wing teabagger becoming a Senator from the most liberal state in America, who will cap the legacy of Ted Kennedy by killing the health care reform bill:
A lot of the politics in Mass is resentment-based and provincial; resenting the Frasier Crane snobs at Harvard is a pasttime, and rejecting outsiders is a matter of course (John Henry and the other Red Sox Owners were vehemently rejected by the Boston masses for the first year or two, because they won the team over a Mass native (Frank McCourt)). Why Obama didn't plunk himself down in Northampton yesterday to immediately End Don't Ask Don't Tell is beyond me. He's been neglecting his base with almost a sense of disdain, as he tries to cozy up to Republicans for some unknown, fruitless reason. Clearly, it doesn't win over Independents like it did in 2008.
I've said this both offline and on so often now I've become bored with it, but Democrats had a chance to fix this months ago. Ted Kennedy, who was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer- let me repeat that, terminal brain cancer- in May of 2008 decided that a special election for his replacement scheduled on the most pro-Democrat Election Day in a generation was simply unnecessary. Then I pointed out in July that maybe it would be a good idea to replace Kennedy with someone who could, oh I don't know, physically show up to vote for stuff. Oh, and as Oliver noted today, let's not forget the wonderful job Harry Reid did of letting Max Baucus dick around with health care for half a year, because that worked out really well in the end, didn't it?
The total failure of Democratic Party foresight, the stubborn naivete of the Kennedy wing, and Obama's absolute capitulation to imaginary bipartisanship are going to result in that bipartisanship Obama claimed he wanted: one more Republican to deal with. And it's entirely the Democrats' fault, no matter how many times you want to pick out progressive bloggers to blame because They're So Mean.™ There aren't any Republicans to blame here- they did everything right.
Bigotry: I do not think that word means what you think it means
Shorter Mike Lester: racism is bad. Martin Luther King would have wanted you to stick to mocking gay people.
Get a brain, Moran
I really wonder if there will ever be a day when right-wingers realize that something isn't true based solely on you wanting it to be.