It seems that everyone wants to talk about the Sean Delonas monkey cartoon and the Michael Steele “off the hook” comments. Neither topic really interests me that much.
The thing with the Delonas monkey cartoon is that all the focus on how offensive the cartoon supposedly is simply is a distraction from how stupid this and other Delonas cartoons are. Going on about the racial connotations makes it sound like it’s “edgy stuff” that people are too uptight to laugh at. It’s not, it’s just dumb. That’s the real problem with it. Remember, wingnuts judge attempts at humor largely on the basis of whether or not they succeed in pissing off liberals.
As for Michael Steele, sure this is amusing:
Newly elected Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele plans an “off the hook” public relations offensive to attract younger voters, especially blacks and Hispanics, by applying the party’s principles to “urban-suburban hip-hop settings.”
[…]“It will be avant garde, technically,” he said. “It will come to table with things that will surprise everyone – off the hook.”
Does that mean cutting-edge?
“I don’t do ‘cutting-edge,’ “ he said. “That’s what Democrats are doing. We’re going beyond cutting-edge.”
But as funny as this is, my amusement is tempered by the thought of how much funnier it would be if Katon Dawson or Ken Blackwell had won and were now saying these things. And if Steele was really serious about this, he’d have Reverend Run and Rick Rubn working on a rap remix of “Back In the Saddle.”
Bootlegger
Nah, just bust out Run DMC’s "Walk This Way". Who do you think waddles more, Limbaugh or Rove?
Stuck
Them republicans, they sure do talk good. They go beyond "Cutting Edge" and land head first on Planet Wingnut.
gex
Also known as going over the cliff.
Comrade Darkness
His other cartoons make zero sense, so trying to make sense of this particular one is a pointless exercise.
Delia
Hey, man, is Steele going to hold a hootenany for all the gooper cool cats out there?
John Cole
This post goes to eleven.
Joshua Norton
Which means they have their feet planted firmly in mid-air, as usual. Anything "beyond cutting edge" is over the cliff.
(Besides being instantly mockable, Republican Rap gives me visions of Vanilla Ice doing a routine that rhymes "money hoarding" with "water boarding")
DougJ
A tale told by a wingnut…
zzyzx
"Remember, wingnuts judge attempts at humor largely on the basis of whether or not they succeed in pissing off liberals."
If I have to hear one more conservative think he’s (and, yes, it almost always is a male) being a laugh riot because he went on and on about how much he loves eating meat in a thread for vegetarians to talk about restaurant locations or something, I’m going to, well, complain on my live journal most likely, but let’s pretend it was something more outrageous. Maybe it was a little funny when Dennis Miller did it in the 80s, but it’s old now. It’s not offensive or radical, just boring.
DougJ
That scene is a real touchstone for me. I feel like I have conversations like that every day. And not just about politics.
Surreal American
While obviously not hip, it could be argued that the GOP is "stupid fresh" in a sense.
Comrade Dread
Simple solution: It’s just a cartoon. The guy is an unfunny dumbass. Don’t buy the Post or boycott NewsCorp if it offends you.
And yes, the wingnuts are busy patting themselves on the back with one hand for making libruls mad, while flinging the faux outrage of "But they compared Bush to a chimp" crap with the other hand.
cleek
WEINSTEIN
Uh, a new PR campaign? Isn’t that a tad predictable?
Steele
In your dreams. We’re talking the original PR campaign from hell.
OAKLEY
You mean "Drill Baby, Drill" ?
Steele
(pause) We at the network want a PR campaign with attitude. It’s edgy, it’s "in your face." You’ve heard the expression "let’s get busy"? Well, this is a PR campaign who gets "biz-zay!" Consistently and thoroughly.
KRUSTY
So it’s proactive, huh?
Steele
Oh, God, yes. We’re talking about a totally outrageous paradigm.
MEYER
Excuse me, but "proactive" and "paradigm"? Aren’t these just buzzwords that dumb people use to sound important? Not that I’m accusing you of anything like that. I’m fired, aren’t I?
MEYERS
Oh, yes.
MEYERS
The rest of you writers start thinking up a name for this funky PR campaign; I dunno, something along the line of say… Poochie, only more proactive.
KRUSTY
Yeah!
Meyers, Krusty and Steele leave.
OAKLEY
So, Poochie okay with everybody?
Politically Lost
I’m not sure who is going to choke on vomit, but if it does end up being me, please God let it be my own.
Chris Johnson
My webcomic friends are inclined to say that print is dead, but I wasn’t sure since so many web cartoons look and act like 4chan leftovers.
Thanks, now I am sure that print is dead, if that’s what passes for editorial cartooning these days :)
Tsulagi
Yeah, that’s been the missing ingredient in cementing that permanent Republican majority. Hip hopping American Taliban patriotically shopping in the malls.
Stuck
Aunt Milly Whitehead from the Kansas Church of the Pentecostal Jesus Beavers is saying WTF!
Farley
The first rule of avant garde is we do not talk about avant garde.
DougJ
You can’t really dust for vomit.
Zifnab
Fix’d.
Joshua Norton
True. But that was after Chimpy himself created his simian personality of being an ignorant poo-flinger as well as Cheney’s trained monkey.
None of that even vaguely applies to Obama. They’re just playing to the dog whistle racism implied in terms like "porch monkey".
djork
It’s not that the GOP is any less popular. It’s that their appeal is becoming more selective.
MikeJ
Didja catch the cartoon last week that Tom Tomorrow linked to in shock? It’s no longer at the editorialcartoonists.com site, whether from routine time limits on posting or offense I don’t know. the url was http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoon/display.cfm/66448 for anyone that wants to research it more.
It was titled, "Post Racial". Panel one shows a black man holding a gun on a white man saying, "I’m gonna pop a cap in you" while the second panel shows Obama talking to a white man saying, "I’m gonna put a cap on your salary".
Macsen
This might not be exactly what happens if Micheal Steel carries out his plans but it’s equally funny.
Virus
Zifnab
@MikeJ: I actually kinda liked that one. From where I was sitting, it made it seem like the CEO couldn’t actually tell the difference.
I mean, I liked the Post-Racial Penny Arcade take better (abet on a different topic entirely).
amorphous
Next thing you’ll know, Gov. Sanford will tell us he opposed the stimulus "for the lulz."
Edit: I take that back. The term is still far too fresh for Republican usage.
Comrade Darkness
@Joshua Norton, True. But that was after Chimpy himself created his simian personality of being an ignorant poo-flinger as well as Cheney’s trained monkey.
Oh, that ignoble and ancient tradition of comparing man-boy Texans to apes rears its ugly head yet again.
Or, it will from now on. Hopefully.
I nominate Phil (my wife’s a whore for Enron and I’m a whore for UBS) Gramm as the next candidate for said comparison.
joe from Lowell
It isn’t the racial implication of the cartoon that’s the problem, as much as the violence. Writing a bill the New York Post doesn’t like is now the equivalent of an unprovoked attack on a woman by a 200 pound ape.
Showing your political rivals dead on the ground with blood splattered around them and bullet holes in their corpses is just bad form.
That the direct comparison is between a black political figure and a chimp is just icing.
JasonF
I can only pray that hip-hop GOP means the return of M.C. Rove.
Joshua Norton
They already tried to get jiggy in da place with Karl Rove and David Gregory breakdancing together. That’s almost as off the hook as knowing all the hand signals to "YMCA".
Pitiful, just pitiful.
Buck
Just one of the many reasons I love lurking here.
NonyNony
@Zifnab:
When I saw the Penny Arcade strip, I actually thought they were making a commentary on the strip MikeJ was talking about. Then they posted their journal update that explained the background of the strip and I got a bit ill. People really don’t think at all, do they?
DougJ
Still, the real problem with it is that isn’t funny. It fails the smell-the-glove test.
DougJ
@Zifnab
I thought that was funny too. And I agree with your interpretation.
magisterludi
OT but people really should read this.
MacsenMifune
Shoot my comment is stuck in limbo cause i didn’t put my full name by accident. Nevermind now its up!
The Moar You Know
I had the rare good fortune about 15 years ago to be sitting in a room full of fellow musicians watching Spinal Tap, and hard as it is to believe, one of them had never seen it before and did not realize it was spoof. He just kept getting more and more pissed off until one of us figured out why he was getting so pissed and explained the premise to him.
If you’re a musician, you’ve worked with guys who are exactly like the ones portrayed in the film, no lie.
Napoleon
Smell the Glove? Personally "Shark Sandwich" was my favorate album of theirs.
Montysano (All Hail Marx & Lennon)
@Comrade Dread:
The "don’t buy it, don’t read it" thing is sort of irrelevant in the Internet Age.
I don’t care if Delonas is a wingnut, an idiot, or if his other stuff is also offensive, whatever. This particular cartoon is dog-whistle for black = ape, and in this case the ape = Obama and is full of bullet holes and dead.
djork
I prefer Intra Venus de Milo my self.
gbear
…It’s such a fine line between clever and stupid.
I see The Mall of America in their future (just a hop, skip and a wide stance from MSP!)
Tsulagi
Oh, they’ve long known those. They shake it to YMCA as a way to squirm into their wetsuits. Now I guess it will be hip hop. The GOP is back.
reece
I love the cutting edge comment. You all know what’s beyond the cutting edge? Whatever it is, it’s being cut.
Incidentally, it might not be as funny if Ken Blackwell were saying the things Steele is because Blackwell is, well, black.
kth
"beyond the cutting edge" = "this one goes to eleven"
Scutch
From NRO:
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Sean Delonas Hitting Homers [John Derbyshire]
Sean Delonas, cartoonist at America’s Newspaper of Record, has been a reliable chronicler of the Clintons and their fortunes, from way back in the ’92 campaign. I think my all-time favorite — which annoyingly I can’t find on the web — is the one of Bill and Hill as hogs heading for the swill trough as a farmer calls "Sooo-eeee!"
Well, Sean has been inspired by Hillary’s recent ups and downs. Check out today’s cartoon. Sunday’s (just select Jan. 6 from the drop-down box) was even better. This man is a national treasure.
bordo
Maybe Michael Steele can get ol’ "turdblossom" himself, Karl "Notorious A.S.S.H.O.L.E." Rove, to reprise that weird dance and rap he did at the White House Correspondents dinner a few years ago. New lyrics, though, to the tune of "Notorious.:
"Rovie, Rovie, Rovie. . .
"Can’t you see. . .
"All of your actions. . .
"Just sicken me. . .
"And I just loath your dorky ways. . .
"Guess that’s why the Dems got in your face."
Nothing will draw more urban and suburban youths of color faster than watching a pasty-faced, portly white guy with more chins than a Chinese phonebook trying to be cool.
While I personally had been rooting for Ken Blackwell to win the RNC post, figuring his nutty evangelicalism would offer endless amusement, I think we’re going to be just fine with Michael Steele. He already is comedy gold and he’s only held the post for a few weeks.
Joshua Norton
Agreed. He should be locked in a vault or buried.
Joshua Norton
I’m guessing they’ll be switching to Hammer pants pretty soon.
gbear
The Barack Obama of Fail.
Bubblegum Tate
@cleek:
You win the internets today. That scene is a stone-cold classic.
ChrisB
From a couple of days ago:
No, Mr. Steele, repeat after me: It’s "whattup," not "what’s up."
Wisdom
Mr. Ramh may not be of this administration much longer. Must be a nice gig, living for free in somebody’s swanky house while doling out six-figure contracts to them as a Freddie Board Member.
Unfortunately for liberals, the electorate does have some standards in holding leaders accountable for their choices, and won’t appreciate being called cowards by his appointees. Very Rich that.
Joshua Norton
That must have had less attendees than a trailer park MENSA meeting.
Zifnab
@NonyNony:
I’m not sure what you mean. The RE 5 storyline takes place deep in Africa. Having hordes of black people turn into zombies makes sense given that they are in Africa and I thought the connotation that it WAS racial was absolutely absurd. RE 4 was based in Eastern Europe and I didn’t see anyone complaining. :-p
Now, on the flip side, I’m sure there will be ignorant slobs who turn the game into some sort of Rodney King reenactment, and that’s rather sad and obscene. But where do you draw the line? Do we ignore the fact that Africa has a high black population? Do we just never make a game based inside the continent out of racial trepidation? Would a token black guy hero have made it all better?
I mean, its a zombie horror game… I just don’t know what people were going to expect. *sigh*
Zifnab
@ChrisB: How are you doing! How are YOU doing!
John Cole
OT: Can anyone tell me how many bills were passed from the time george Bush took office until the time the Democrats took over after the 2006 election. And how many passed along basically party line votes.
Thanks in advance. Email me if you know.
Mouse Tolliver
This means southern conservatives will start using the word "nizzle" instead of "negro."
Stuck
Also OT
Don’t know, but my guess is all of em. And one, The Patriot Act, has a long reach, as we see with this first. And I don’t know the details of the case, but it smells bad, like Police State in the Morning BAd.
T. Scheisskopf
You know, I was one of the first people to buy a Sean Delonas print. It was a wickedly funny barroom print, clever and it showed a lot of talent. He couldn’t believe I wanted one. I payed $20.00 for it.
Sean grew up in my hometown, where he was simply this really shy, retiring, sweet kid with a lot of talent. No real political views, he was just into being 18 and his art.
I don’t know what the fuck they do to people at the NYPost, but it has to be heinous and brutal. Likely something out of the North Korean, c. Korean War playbook, or MKUltra.
Because whoever this tasteless, anacephalic klownyklownklownklown hack is, it sure ain’t any Sean Delonas I ever knew. That person had a soul.
jenniebee
Why do I have the feeling that this really might have been the conversation the Republican Leadership had when they decided on Michael Steele?
Dave
@John Cole:
Remember that the Democrats controlled the Senate between June of 2001 and January, 2003 when Jeffords left the GOP and caucused with the Democrats.
gbear
If you’re a musician, you’ve
worked with guys who arebeen in a band exactly like the ones portrayed in the film, no lie.I don’t always have fond memories of my mid-seventies progressive rock cover band days, other than marvelling at how I could survive on $200 a month back then. There was lots of cheap beer involved.
bago
Shouldn’t it be "Black in the Saddle"?
Persia
@NonyNony:
Resident Evil 5 just depresses the shit out of me at this point. And the reactions from the gaming community even more so.
Brick Oven Bill
I do not believe that Delonas was alluding to Barack Obama. Nancy Pelosi wrote the damn “Gimme some money” bill. This is thus a sexist cartoon, in my opinion.
John S.
Not exactly.
Democrats had an extremely tenuous 51-seat majority after Jeffords left to caucus with them.
That’s not exactly "controlling" the Senate, now is it? Especially when dealing with Republican children that make it impossible to control anything with less than a 60-seat super majority.
Sam Simple
Maybe Steele can share a few David Duke jokes or explain to the black folk how Timothy McVeigh just had to blow up that Federal Building in Oklahoma City and blow several dozen black people to smithereens because the government is just so evil. The GOP just has so much love to offer our brothers!
malraux
@Zifnab: And the fact that it is uncomfortable is somewhat of a point in its favor. The point of horror is to unsettle the player/viewer.
Joshua Norton
OT – Californey has a budget finally.
Waaaay doggies.
Ned R.
@Joshua Norton: If you want to have ‘fun’ of a sort, try plowing through the comments on that story. Some unusual people there.
Brick Oven Bill
I don’t understand monkeys. This monkey was reportedly 200 pounds and the female reporter said that it had the strength of ten men. But I also weigh 200 pounds, and share 98.5% of this monkey’s DNA, so I am told. And I lift weights on occasion, which I doubt this monkey did. So I theoretically should be stronger than this monkey was.
So, what gives? I suspect that the reporter did not know what she was talking about. This was a physically attractive female reporter. As far as I can tell, the monkey’s primary advantage would be his teeth, which looked menacing.
bago
@Brick Oven Bill: Yeah, why would "The party of curious george", "Why can’t teh blacks excape NO", and the "tar baby" hugging strom thurmond defenders possibly even have a scintilla of a hint of a whiff of racism when casually linking our porch m***ey president with a rampant monkey? What kind of douche could possibly make that connection?
You might have to think that the party of Lincolon embraced the southern strategy.
How Rude. Now if you don’t mind I have this lovely rendition of "Barack the Magic Negro" to listen to. How droll.
jibeaux
@Ned R.:
Oh, yeah, some real geniuses there.
Breaking news! If you count every man, woman, child, retiree, baby, homemakers, Paris Hilton, and out of work people not eligible for unemployment, the unemployment rate is less than 2% Boo-yah!
bago
And your preview comment parser is seriously screwed. Like dropping random element definition screwed. Also.
poopsybythebay
That was the funniest thing I’ve ever read-spit coke thru my nose:
gbear
@jibeaux:
If we had better mass transit, far more babies would be able to participate in the job market.
Brian J
About Michael Steele and his grand plan: words are simply failing me. I’ve been trying to write a few paragraphs that contained some jokes about how stupid he sounds, but I don’t think that needs any elaboration. Suffice it to say that the idea that the party’s problems lie in messaging as opposed to mostly ideas lives on, and that this myth will continue to benefit Democrats for years to come.
But more seriously, why don’t the Republicans go with the idea that some elements of their party have been disasters, those people are being marginalized. Instead of governing like they have for the past two decades, they could govern like responsible, competent businessman and managers. Why not focus on the idea–represented by something like matching contributions up to a certain point for savings or retirement accounts for people who don’t have access, for instance–that the government doesn’t need to be big, it just needs to be competently run and able to respond to the needs of the citizens without running their lives? Such moves would require them to brush aside a lot of the recent past, but that’s not exactly the worst thing in the world to do if you’re trying to move on. It would also require them to steal certain ideas from Democrats, either for inspiration or directly, but that’s not the worst thing in the world, either. I’m not in the habit of giving Republicans advice, nor do I expect them to follow it, but that’s the sort of path I think they should take.
jibeaux
Does Brick Oven Bill remind anyone else of either Gareth on the British Office, or Dwight Schrute on the US version? And if so, which one more? I’m going to have to go with Gareth.
Napoleon
I have read a bunch of books on apes over the years and I can answer this. First it was an ape not a monkey, but that aside a study was done several years ago comparing chimps and humans (in the form of college football players) and chimps have 5 times the upper body strength of humans (remember a human weighting the same as a chimp will have a huge proportion of his body weight in his legs). Plus chimps, in essence, have 4 hands. To top it off they have extremely strong jaws as compared to humans and very big canine teeth compared to humans (the pointy sharp teeth on the top jaw at the front corner of your mouth). My impression was that in the attack a few days ago the chimp essentially bit the woman’s face off.
I read a story in the same place I got the above where someone had a chimp at a circus or someplace like that, where he would let humans wrestle the chimp for some amount of money and if they beat the chimp they would get a huge payout (btw, the chimp had a mouth guard). Humans would routinely think they would whip the chimp, and the chimp would then go on to routines kick the human’s @$$ all over the place.
PS, On your "monkeys don’t lift weights" Go to a zoo sometime and watch the apes. Male, female, young and old, it doesn’t matter, they are all essentially "gym rats". They spend all day working out by swinging from things. Most of them have muscle definition a man would kill for.
jibeaux
@gbear:
Typical liberal swill. Babies need to go ahead and learn how to walk, and get themselves to work on their own two feet. They should pull themselves up by their bootiestraps.
Tom Hilton
Delonas reminds me of the Onion’s wingnut cartoonist, except stupider, more vicious, and not as funny.
Edit: and when I say ‘not as funny’, I mean even less funny than the Onion’s editorial cartoons would be if they were actual editorial cartoons instead of parody. Hell, even Mallard Fillmore is funnier than Delonas.
Litlebritdifrnt
Speaking of Limbaugh I don’t know how many of you have been listening to him recently but to be honest he is beginning to sound dangerous yesterday he said this:
"Obama got a house he couldn’t afford but the way he did it was Rezko, with Rezko and his wife. So this plan, we ought to call this the "Rezko Rescue," getting a great deal on a house you could never afford,"
and this
"Obama has a mind-set that this country treats the disadvantaged very poorly and does so on purpose. I think Obama has got a bug in his hair. I think he’s got a chip on his shoulder about race; I think he’s got a chip on his shoulder about poverty; I think he believes it’s caused and planned and maintained by power brokers, and I think what Obama’s doing behind all the flowery rhetoric is *getting even.* He’s happy to see Wall Street go to hell, he’s happy to see these big time execs, be it in Australia, be it the auto industry, he’s glad to see them come begging to Washington, he’s glad to see them hurting. "
and this
"I didn’t realize the rage or the *anger* that is propelling the policies of this man and his rhetoric."
"I’ve thought about this, and I really do believe that there is a reservoir of *anger* that is behind every Obama legislative initiative and idea."
"So there’s *anger* behind all of this that he camouflages exceptionally well, that he masks very well. He comes across as something far more than *angry*. People don’t even see that about him."
"They’re mad, irrationally so. Obama does a good job of masking his *rage*, but look at his preacher, Jeremiah Wright. You talk about *angry?* Look at Father Pfleger and William Ayers, *angry* at the inequities and the unfairness of capitalism. Blow up the Pentagon. You know, all these things we tried to say during the campaign mattered. Everybody said, "No, no, no, no! They’re ancient associations. Obama didn’t know these people. He can’t be held responsible." Wrong. We’re now watching it play out in front of our eyes. We’re watching the results of *anger* at what these people considered to be the inequities and the unfairness of capitalism, get squared way. "
"I think there’s some *anger* that has been effervescing in Obama and his people, and we know that’s the case. The entire left wing in this country is just fulminating with rage. They are filled with it. They get up *angry*, they go to bed *angry*, they spend the whole day mad. "
The first clip I posted just to point out one of Limbaugh’s many lies. "Obama bought a house he couldn’t afford" which considering he’d made $10 million on a book is clearly laughable. However the rest of it (and he expounds on it today) is dangerous language. Shorter Rush Limbaugh "Obama is an angry black man and he is going to make all you white people suffer to get even." This is irresponsible and wrong and someone needs to call the motherfucker out on it because that kind of talk could cause the wrong kind of reaction from the ratfuckers that listen to him.
jrg
Shorter Michael Steele: "Since plagiarizing rock and roll has worked out so well, it’s time we did the same with rap".
Pathetic. No strategy, no direction, they just keep throwing shit at the wall, hoping something sticks. As if people will be more attracted to veiled racism ("Obama’s not really an American"), attacks on science ("’God did it’ is a scientific theory"), and reckless war mongering if it’s rapped about or coded in HTML. Morons.
Mnemosyne
@jibeaux:
I vote Gareth. BOB’s just a little too stupid to be Dwight, believe it or not.
The Other Steve
When they described the cartoon on the radio yesterday all I could think of was… "Huh? I don’t get it. What does a rampaging chimp have to do with the stimulus package?"
Even after Sharptons explanation I still don’t get it.
Brick Oven Bill
Thank you for that interesting information Napoleon. When I heard that this monkey ripped the lady’s jaw off, it did occur to me that this would take a lot of force. Also to rip off somebody’s hands.
I will gives these monkeys a wide bearth.
jibeaux
Shoot, maybe he’s not Gareth…or maybe BOB just isn’t starving yet ’cause he has the pizzas…
I wish there were more episodes of that show.
Stuck
Yes it is. But begs the eternal Chicken/Egg argument. Does Limbaugh create the millions of ratfuckers that drink his swill, or did the millions of ratfuckers create Limbaugh. I’m guessing the latter. And if Limbaugh manages to incite them to act out their hate, then moi’ and even more millions of others will have a word, or not. Meantime, Limbaugh serves a useful purpose by giving a public voice to his sewer trout ditto heads. He tells us what they think and how many there are. Call it an Idiot Awareness Program for America.
Napoleon
@Brick Oven Bill:
Interesting, I had not heard about the hands, so after your post I went to the website of the paper in the town in Conn and they report that she has been moved to here, Cleveland, to the Clinic. They did the first face transplant in the US a few months ago.
Dennis-SGMM
@Litlebritdifrnt:
Lots of "anger" and "angry" to be found in Limbaugh’s rants every day. He’s playing to his base: they’re the angry ones. Limbaugh is just there to make certain that their anger isn’t directed at the people who have been comprehensively screwing them since the Age of Steam.
jharp
Sadly No has a different caption to the Post’s cartoon.
http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/17575.html
The Moar You Know
@Brick Oven Bill: But sadly, you are no smarter or inquisitive.
In order to assist your theorizing, you need to start asking better questions. You might want to research the idea of the lever as it applies to limbs on both humans and apes, and do a little research as to why knuckle-walking primates are so much stronger than the ones (humans) that walk upright. You might also want to research why a chimp’s jaws are so much more powerful than a humans – there are some pretty elementary reasons for all these things.
You might learn something. In the meantime, stay away from chimps. They are, no joke, about 5 times as strong as a strong human.
Chuck Butcher
BoB, you share very nearly the same percentage of DNA with pigs and somehow there’s a bit of a difference. A chimp on a rampage is an extremely dangerous animal, teeth, essentially 4 hands, strength, and speed. What chimps do as a matter of course during their day is way beyond your capabilities – once. Have you ever watched how chimps move through trees?
A free press means you’re gonna live with this shit because there’s an audience for it. Free speech means you can complain. Whatever else this thing is, it just is neither funny nor insightful, but NYP pays for it.
I have a certain amount of empathy for the RNC – don’t mistake that with sympathy. Democrats are the minority party in my county and County Party membership is aging and lacking much of any youth participation. This bridge is not easy to cross considering that bodies like RNC and mine are looking for participation in the process which isn’t real attractive. At the current moment we’re strategizing how to put limitted resources of money and people to the best effect. Obama is an asset right now but there is a leap between liking somebody and taking action.
At least we’re not trying to sell obvious failure.
ricky
I was unaware they had shared a cell or a room while with John Cornyn on a fact finding trip to Antigua.
Litlebritdifrnt
@Dennis-SGMM:
I have heard him use it before of course (I have been listening to him for ten years) but this stuff is bothering me (I know I know don’t listen). I believe that his current rants are framed specifically for the purpose I stated above, I will have to wait for the transcripts tomorrow but today he said it again "he is angry and he is going to get even with you folks" Personally I do not think I have ever seen the President "angry" I have seen him emotional, I have seen him fired up but certainly not angry (he also refers to Michelle in these terms too and says that both of them are "angry") Maybe it is me being hyper sensitive but I just wish someone with some influence (Olberman/Rachael?) would take him to task over it.
DougJ
It could be a little more than 98.5%.
TenguPhule
That would be stubby blunt then?
TenguPhule
The correct answer is both. At the same time.
Damn you QUANTOM!!
OriGuy
Michael Steele is aware of all ARPANET traditions.
Surly Duff
@ gbear
Not entirely true. Even with better mass transit, those those damned unions would still prevent corporations from allowing babies to work for a living. Damned unions, never looking out for hard-working babies.
Comrade Kevin
@Napoleon:
Two word review: "Shit Sandwich".
The Moar You Know
When chimps attack.
You’ll never look at them the same again. They should not be kept in private hands, for any reason.
EDIT: Also, the pic of the victim is by far the best-looking one. I’ve seen other pics of him. They’re enough to make one vomit.
Legalize
I suppose this is a bad time to question how much more black the GOP can be. Of course the answer is none. None more black.
gil mann
The guy’s an idiot for not realizing it’d be seen that way, but it’s pretty obvious he was using the monkey in the "infinite typewriters" sense. Nobody thinks presidents "write" bills, and I for one have become so desensitized by 8 years of a guy who bears an uncanny resemblance to a chimpanzee that the monkey=black thing’s been crowded right out of my mind.
I hate Delonas’s work (well, except for the one about Farakkhan being treated at Mt. Sinai), but I always side with artists against those who would presume to tell me what they really meant. Sorry, online center-left, you blew all your cartoon-critiquing cred on Newyorkercovergate.
JenJen
Yep. This kind of thing doesn’t outrage me, personally, because it’s par for the course when it comes to the NY Post, isn’t it?
I mean, c’mon. Delonas set out to create a politically provocative cartoon that could immediately be interpreted as portraying the President as an assassinated chimpanzee, but not blatantly so, right? It’s open to a little interpretation, so that when the outrage kicked in, the NY Post could throw up its hands and say, predictably, "What! What on earth are you talking about? Maybe you’re the racists! Oh my god! See, look at the PC Liberals, there they go again with their outrageous knee-jerk insinuations!"
All while having a hearty chuckle, of course, over something they intended from the get-go. To me, that’s the maddening part.
I think the lesson here is that Sean Delonas, Col Allen and Rupert Murdoch are utter jackasses, and that they know exactly what they’re doing. I wish people wouldn’t act so surprised every time something like this happens.
Zifnab
@Legalize: Nonsense. They could all dress in black face and sit around doing meth and make’n babies in some backwater Alaskan town. Then they could start calling other black people the n-word and acting surprised when people get offended. And they could eat lots of greasy fried foods and demand the government give them lots of free handouts. And… omg, I suddenly understand what happened. Republicans have had these black stereotypes for years, but they weren’t negative stereotypes at all. They were aspirations.
Michelle's Brain
@Zifnab:
I think it’s worth reading N’Gai Croal‘s interview on the matter, because he hits all your points and provides pretty compelling arguments to the contrary:
It’s not like people are marching on the streets burning CapCom offices, but video games, including zombie video games, aren’t some weekend project for a guy living in a basement anymore. They have huge financial and cultural impacts, so at the very least you’d think that the people at CapCom would try and see how these things are going to be received by someone that isn’t your stereotypical socially-retarded gamer. They either didn’t (which raises serious question about how their business is run) or they did and decided to run with the "Hey look at us, we’re being edgy for the sake of it!" route.
There’s a context and a history at work with these images that can’t be dismissed simply because "it’s just a stupid game!" It’s very much more than that, and the reaction from people who do think about this stuff has generally been confusion and disappointment, because we really do have reason to care.
I don’t think we’d even need to be having this conversation if one of the big game houses came out with a "Stuff the Jews into the gas chamber!" game, regardless of whether they were Jewish zombies or not. There is a blind spot here and it deserves to be taken seriously.
JenJen
@Joshua Norton: Re: the "But… but! Didn’t they call Bush a chimp?" thing…
Didn’t that all start with a website called BushorChimp.com? I remember being incredibly pissed right after the 2000 election, and when that website popped up, it was good for a laugh.
I don’t think the comparison was ever intended to portray Bush’s stupidity; back in those days it wasn’t yet abundantly clear to everyone. And besides, chimps aren’t stupid. The joke was that Bush had simian features that, when put side by side with a photo of a chimp, made one have a nice chuckle.
That website was launched on November 13, 2000. I could be totally off about this, but whenever I hear the "but they called Bush a chimp" thing, I immediately think of the comic relief that website gave me, back in the day. I even recall that the creator of the website took it down in the days following 9/11, when people like Bill Maher were getting the shaft for "insensitive" comments and the like.
Credit for "Chimpy" where credit is due, if you ask me. It was always my favorite nickname for him. :-)
Andre
@Michelle’s Brain: Heh, that was me. Forgot to change my name after posting in a thread where the name might have made sense.
Anyway, didn’t mean to sound too strident, I’m not cutting myself over this or anything. I just think there’s value in discussing this stuff without flippancy.
Bubblegum Tate
"A Blaffair to Rememblack"
NonWonderDog
That’s absurd. Zombies don’t breathe.
Anne Elk (Miss)
Perhaps we will someday soon find ourselves seeing
"Puppet show and GOP candidate"……..
Shygetz
@Michelle’s Brain: So am I to believe if Capcom made the zombies white, I wouldn’t be hearing about how Capcom had to go out of their way to NOT put black people in their games, even when they are set in Africa? Please. Capcom is treating the African characters the same way they treated the Spanish characters in RE4, and the American characters in RE1-3. But equal treatment isn’t sufficient, apparently. The only thing that would make people like you happy is if black characters were only given heroic roles, which prevents any games from being set in black-dominated locales. Get. Over. Yourself. RE5 should be viewed as a landmark for racial equality in video games–a major game set in Africa. Instead, people are bitching because Africa has Africans. It’s insane.
Chris Johnson
You need better musician friends. I had some longtime musician friends who’d done a lot of live and studio work, and they told me that when they first saw This Is Spinal Tap they really hurt themselves laughing, even at stuff the nonmusician audience missed. It really is terrifyingly accurate :)
Napoleon
@The Moar You Know:
Well they talked on the local TV news about the attack victim they moved hear and it sounds like she will be lucky if she ever even looks as good as that guy. They said she lost both eyes, her jaw and nose.
ChrisB
@Zifnab: Hilarious. Thank you. Made my day.
iluvsummr
@Joshua Norton: Yay for the California budget passing.
My favorite Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria) quote:
Legalize
Apocalypse ’09: The GOP Strikes Black?
JWW
Being that President Obama didn’t write the stimulus bill, I find it quite funny that everyone wants to point a finger and suggest,(for a news line) that the cartoon is totally about him.
I saw it and President Obama was not my thought. I remember a game called, "A Barrel of Monkeys" and that is exactly what the current congress is. Our house and senate wrote the bill and they threw the president aside in doing so. They raped him and he didn’t feel it.
He will, hopefully see in time that he and his position was and can be manipulated if he does not read and oppose or concur with those bills he signs.
henry
I love how he says he’s going "off the hook" with the "hip hop" and then throws in "avant garde." One of these things is not like the other…..
gil mann
Yay, my backup’s here.
JWW
What should really happen is, you should feel sorry for the monkey. He was the total captive of a human, kept in a cage and like all animals, knows who they like and who they don’t. Like humans, it is within us to dislike, we have the abilty to walk away. Animals have to stay within the confines we give them.
As far as the cartoon, I didn’t see this same crowd having any problem with the jokes or cartoons pointed to President Bush.
I think, maybe your being breast fed til the age of 15 or 16 has had a bad influence on you.
President Obama is a rookie, so far he is being used. If and when he get his feet under him, the lifers that just punked him will be cast aside by his own voice. He is not a pawn, he may have been played as one so far but he will learn.
mannemalon
@Litlebritdifrnt:
You should make this a post over at Kos. Keith and/or his producers check it daily. Someone needs to call him out on it asap.
electrophoresis
Why wouldn’t the GOP expect to prevail after a little image enhancement?
After all, George H. W. Bush ridiculed Ronald Reagan’s supply-side tax cut scheme as "voodoo economics" all the way back in 1980 when both Bush and Reagan were running for the Republican presidential nomination. Bush told the truth about the tax-cut insanity 29 years ago. Nobody can say they weren’t warned. What happened? Bush lost, Reagan won.
The lesson of the last 30 years is clear. The public loves voodoo economics. Ronald Reagan’s voodoo economics is exactly the same insane tax-cuts-for-the-rich bullshit the GOP has spouted for the last 29 years, exactly the same craziness we’ve seen for the last 8 years…and the public adores it. The public has lapped it up like dogs eagerly licking their master’s vomit off the floor. The public loves voodoo economics so much that when it came time for him to run for president in 1988, George H. W. Bush embraced the voodoo economics crackpot scheme of eternal tax cuts for the rich and rode it to victory.
For 29 years this insane eternal never-ending tax-cuts-for-the-rich crap has been a winning issue for the GOP. Why wouldn’t they expect it to work now?
Remember, you’re talking about an America full of voters like this. Sure, the supply-side tax cut craziness eventually got so bad that it crushed the entire American economy. But that happened before, in 1981-82 and 1991. Voters continued to vote for the GOP tax-cuts-for-the-rich after those colossal economic meltdowns. Why shouldn’t they vote for more of that GOP tax-cuts-for-the-rich insanity in another 3 years?
You think the American people ever learn anything from experience? Please. Get real. SUV sales have bounced back up because of lower gas prices. The American people are like planaria. They never learn. $4 a gallon gasoline 6 months ago and everyone was running around screaming like wild monkeys. As soon as gasoline prices drop temporarily, the American people stop their shrieking and stampede into dealerships to buy more SUVs. The American people never learn from experience.
Why wouldn’t the GOP expect their 30-year-old voodoo economics tax-cuts-for-the-rich lunacy to play with the American electorate? What did the drunk driving C student who infested the oval office for 8 years do that Ronald Reagan didn’t do? And didn’t the American people adore Ronald Reagan? Didn’t they worship him for putting them out of work, for trashing our national deficits with insane unsustainable military spending and for filling the streets with homeless people? What has changed? Why won’t the American people crawl back to the GOP in another 3 years and whimper like cats doused with gasoline & set on fire as they lick their abuser’s hand yet again?