I’ve about had it with the constant “meep meep” references at Sully’s blog. Recall the basic RoadRunner plotline — it’s not that sophisticated:
He’s a jack-off. All he wants to do is “run down the road all day”. Perhaps, on rare occasions, he might “leave you in a heap”, but generally he “never bothers anyone”.
Obama can’t be that way. Running down the road might be his idea of having fun, but he can’t get shit done doing it. And he can’t be blowing up the crazy clowns every day. He has to work with those idiots.
If someone made a cartoon glorifying a careful plodder like Obama, it would be so fucking dull that showing it to children would verge on child abuse.
Emma
You know how Sadly No! commenters have that joke about always.trust.the.shorter? Well, I have one of my own: never.read.the.sully.
Utter bliss follows.
Pigs & Spiders
I think mayhaps you’re taking the analogy too far.
It’s useful insofar as the Republicans keep laying traps for Obama and he continues to get things accomplished despite them.
Punchy
Between the Sullivan reference, the “meep” link, and the undefined pronouns in “he’s a jack off…..”, this post is so inside baseball that it gave Peter Gammons a woody.
Tom Hilton
You’re right about it not being an accurate portrayal of the President.
It is, however, dead-on about the Republicans.
Redshirt
Can we deconstruct the Roadrunner cartoons? I’d like that.
ACME represents the ultimate hollowness of Capitalism, FYI.
JGabriel
MisterMix:
You mean it would be just like Davey and Goliath?
.
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
Ummm. Think you might be missing the point, rather. I don’t think the idea behind the “meep, meep” references is that Obama is supposed to run really fast all day, live in the desert, or wear distinctively colored feathers. It’s a reference to the fact that the GOP and the teatards (a distinctions without a difference?) wind up looking like Wile E. every time they try to take him out. They end up flattened, confused, and crispy around the edges, and are apparently incapable of learning from the experience. Meanwhile, RR sails blithely on toward whatever goal he’s set next.
Overthinking. You’re soaking in it.
Dreggas
@Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion:
That’s exactly what he means. Road runner was always one step ahead of the coyote.
jron
Actually, I always sort of liked Slowpoke Rodriguez better than his cousin.
GReynoldsCT00
@Pigs & Spiders:
agreed, RR always gets away no matter what Wiley tries. And then sneaks up behind him quietly and does the MEEP! MEEP! thing. LOL
Max
I like the reference.
See Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion above.
Libby
@JGabriel: LOL. Davy and Goliath is a perfect analogy. I was a cartoon addict as a kid and even I couldn’t watch that. Now Gumby on the other hand….
Citizen Alan
As much as people joke about various folks here being “Obots,” I think the term actually applies to Sully. He really has drunk the Kool-Aid on Obama and can see nothing wrong with him … except for the torture issue, but even there Sully excuses Obama’s tepid responses to what Sully seems to consider one of the preeminent moral issues of the day. A very strange sort of cognitive dissonance this is.
GReynoldsCT00
somehow this makes me leap to the cartoon of Daffy Duck getting shot in the face and has his bill facing backwards…also, too
tratclif
Dreggas
@tratclif:
Too late, Joe lieberman is called Droopy, not because of being able to outsmart opponents but with the jowls and voice…well…he’s droopy.
JustBeingPedantic
A bit satire challenged on this April Fool’s Day, eh mistermix?
The Road Runner cartoons have never been about the bird, they’re about the futility of Wile E. Coyote’s efforts to catch him. Sully started his entire “meep meep” thing using the one cartoon — Soup or Sonic — where Wile E. actually caught the Road Runner. The cartoon ends with Mr. C holding up two signs reading, “OK, wise guys – you always wanted me to catch him,” and, “Now what do I do?”
meep meep!
As for Davey and Goliath, it was hilarious very early on Sunday morning as a wrap-up to a long, fun-filled, well-fueled Saturday night.
JGabriel
@Libby:
I read Atlas Shrugged last night, and Gumby is my new favorite cartoon character because he’s green: the color of money!
I also have a newfound admiration for Mr. Burns.
.
Remember November
Why Wile E Never just whipped out an AK and spelltered that birdshitferbrains all over Yuma I’ll never know…oh right, kids cartoon.
demo woman
Excuse me if this has been mentioned
Here’s the link to Politico
It’s gotta be an April Fools joke, right?
gbear
Or it might look like this. I especially loved that the hare’s downfall comes from his inability to make it past a girl’s school.
eemom
I like the Road Runner. I like Obama. And I never read Sully.
I think that fixes it.
flukebucket
Has this always been an internet tradition? I saw it here for the first time yesterday and I love it.
JD in Chicago
I think the root of Sully’s Obama obsession is that the president is the kind of politician he always hoped the Republicans would produce — a moderate pragmatist who is socially liberal but conscious of national security and fiscal responsiblity.
The fact that no such candidate will ever crawl out of the Republican party’s cauldron of doom has left Sully with no other option but to hitch his wagon to Obama’s star.
Da Bomb
I agree with Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion synopsis of what Sully is saying.
Might bit overthinking a tad bit.
WereBear
@Citizen Alan: Well, that bugs the brimstone out of me, too.
The only moderating factor is that if President Obama did concentrate on it, we’d have a national freakout, on top of a collapsing economy, the climate change issue, and not passing health care.
I have to give his priorities some credit; people were, and are, dying right now; as much as I’d love to see Bush administration assholes in orange jumpsuits, would I murder more innocents to get that done?
I probably couldn’t do that.
AngusJackBootedThugOfMeat
I have no idea what this top post means or what I am supposed to make of it.
I assume that you were drunk when you posted it.
Arkon DougJ
Sully is very worth reading, in general. But this kind of thing from him is indeed, stupid.
Redshirt
@flukebucket: I’d like to point out I was using the phrase “You’re soaking in it” on my radio show in 1993;
I was Madge, the Omniscient Beautician, if this phrase does become an internet meme, I want a slice of the royalties!
SpotWeld
There’s was a Doctor Who epsiode about someone playing “The Long Game”
Oh yeah.. a somewhat amorphous alien blob stirs up global discontent and restrains progress by manipulating the flow of information to deliberatly sow discord and panic.
Sounds more like the GOP actually.
John W.
Thank god someone wrote this. It’s about time.
Whatever you think about Sullivan – I read him but understand he’s not for everyone – this is a stupid tic of his that he needs to end.
Downpuppy
The roadrunner goes “Beep, Beep”
“Meep” is Beaker from the Muppets tag line. A while back it was a high school craze around here, with the usual overreaction from school administratortatertots.
cleek
@flukebucket:
it’s been around quite a while.
you’re soaking in it
CT Voter
There’s a lot of soaking being done here.
Tomlinson
Add me to the list of people who think that the meep meep analogy is basically sound.
I think it underestimates the sheer luck of Obama. I mean, seriously, his opponents are like the gang that could not shoot straight. Some of that is meep-meep, but a lot is sheer stupidity on their part.
Mark Sanford starts to get some traction as an anti-reform guy…then goes hiking in the appalachians. The GOP gets some moral superiority going on HCR and “ignoring the wishes of the people”…then we find they’ve been expensing debauched nights at a lesbian bondage strip club. Then we find it wasn’t them, but some consultant. Then we find the consultant was *doing them a favor* and they’ve ruined his life. HCR passes and the GOP starts saying how it is armageddon and then the insurers immediately start trying to weasel out of taking care of sick kids, so everyone thinks “got to regulate those bastards!” Etc, etc.
gbear
@Downpuppy:
The Little Nash Rambler, also, too.
Michael D.
“Let’s put up a lame I hate Sully post! That’ll get some comments.”
Throw-away.
The Populist
Chalk me up as a big believer in Obama the chess player. The drilling compromise is just that….like it or not (I do not) there has to be some give and take. I feel Obama is showing the public “look, I am a reasonable guy” and waiting to see what the GOP does with it.
So far we have Palin sounding like the moron she is tweeting about how he’s drill baby drilling blah blah blah while still trashing him. Fine, she can do that BUT there has to be a situation where most Americans start to see GOP whining as just that.
Either come to the fucking table wingnuts, or STFU for good.
norbizness
I’ve about had it with the constant “meep meep” references at Sully’s blog.
Remove “”meep meep”” and replace “at” with “to.”
dmsilev
@Remember November: Never mind that. WIth the Coyote’s budget, why didn’t he just order take-out?
-dms
Downpuppy
GBear;
Thanks for the new version. The one they took down, with a giraffe & Clay Aiken, was the Little Pup’s all time favorite video.
The Populist
@Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion:
Good observation! The polls are killing due to the economy BUT this drilling thing does sell the idea that it’s a job creation/economic stimulus.
If he can keep selling this stuff, get the bank reform through (or dare the GOP to vote it down in the open) all while the economy improves, 2010 and 2012 may not be the bloodbath the right seems to think it will be. I doubt the GOP would gain enough seats to take over either branch of congress, but they can cause more problems gaining even a few seats in the Senate.
GReynoldsCT00
Eeeh, I disagree, I just listened to a clip on You Tube for a reality check. Sounds like “meep” to me.
Midnight Marauder
@Downpuppy:
This is what actually bothers me about Sully using this analogy all the time (well, besides his increasingly reliant use of the phrase). I thought it was pretty well known and settled that the Roadrunner’s phrase is “beep, beep”, not “meep, meep.” Leave it to a Brit to fuck up that American classic.
@Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion:
Yeppers.
JD Rhoades
@jron:
Slowpoke Rodriguez…He pack a gun.
Brachiator
@Tomlinson:
I always knew he was Irish.
And don’t forget about how Jack Ryan tripped up during Obama’s early Senate run.
The Republicans just never learn.
Also, too.
Midnight Marauder
@GReynoldsCT00:
Well you know who disagrees with you?
The people who created the fucking thingWikipedia:I think we’re done here.
eemom
Absolutely it is Meep and not Beep.
ETA: Don’t care what Wiki or WB thinks. Meep meep is what the Road Runner SAYS.
EEH
@demo woman: Well, my husband did get that “census” thing in the mail yesterday and what a piece of work it is. How I wish it were an April Fool.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. At the very end, it makes the pitch for money and if you don’t feel like donating as generously as they’d like you to, you have the option of donating $15 to cover the cost of processing the “census” form.
LM
Obama is not “a careful plodder”–compare accomplishments to time in office. But it’s no use trying to rebut something if nothing’s cited in support. And half of what I’ve read this morning has turned out to be tedious April fooling, so I don’t even know if this is snark.
I hope this isn’t a change in tone. The other day, Greenwald scathingly misread a bland dKos lay-out of his PAC’s expenses, calling it a “smear” by “Obots.” Some blogs responded to his flaming as if the charge were true, much the same way MSM reacts to screams from the right about the “liberal” media.
freelancer
@The Populist:
Agreed.
One of his readers says it pretty well.
That said, he is beating this imagery to death already.
GReynoldsCT00
@Midnight Marauder:
No need to be so harsh about it, sheesh
Midnight Marauder
@eemom:
Why do you hate flightless birds with speech impediments?
Midnight Marauder
@GReynoldsCT00:
Another retarded bird hater.
I THOUGHT THIS WAS AMERICA, SHEEPLE?!
GReynoldsCT00
@Midnight Marauder:
See paragraph four.
Touche
GReynoldsCT00
@Midnight Marauder:
FFS, we’re here saying how cool the Road Runner is, nobody’s hating!
rootless-e
@JGabriel:
He bestrode the planet
A haughty green tinged hue
John Galt
Howard Roark
and Gumby
The first rate
the proud
the few
IndieTarheel
I’ll leave it to you as to whether this is OT or not:
__
President Obama is going to be in my neck of the woods tomorrow. As you might imagine, hilarity is poised to ensue:
__
So NOW you “intend” to remain peaceful?
__
YOU.HAVE.GOT.TO.BE.KIDDING.ME.
Midnight Marauder
@GReynoldsCT00:
Whoa, easy there. This is all in jest. There is no serious disagreement happening here (even though I disagree with you).
And for the record, I don’t care what Wikipedia says, I’m sticking with Wikipedia.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Congrats mistermix on successfully trolling the commentariat, on April Fools Day no less. I didn’t think it could be done, but you pulled it off. That ought to earn you a promotion to Boromander, or at least a box of Scooby Snacks.
I would like to pick a nit with this part, tho:
Whaddayamean, child abuse. I liked having The Little Engine That Could read to me when I was little. And look how I turned out.
Oh, wait…
Libby
@JGabriel: Ha! Personally I liked his sidekick Pokey the best. Trying to remember if they were the ones that were always blurping inside of story books for their adventures.
Libby
@dmsilev:
It’s not the bagging of the game, it’s the thrill of the chase…
Rommie
I always liked the Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius version who tangled with Bugs Bunny more. The sheer arrogance and sureness of his superiority make him an even better representation of the whacko-GOP IMO.
The real question, however, is if John Cole would start banning people who used meep-meep or beep-beep as posts. Lord knows the FIRST! meme is still going strong…
Downpuppy
Meep can be awesome.
But that ain’t ole Beep Beep in the vid.
Redshirt
Let’s just move this whole metaphor over to the Tom and Jerry show.
Tom = Repugs, Jerry = Obama, Leg Lady we never see = Hillary.
flukebucket
@cleek:
@Redshirt:
How well I remember this commercial.
But I had never seen “you’re soaking in it” used in such a fashion.
Just like “that’s what she said” it can be used in so many instances.
DurangoDave
While Wile E. Coyote is a damn good representation of the Republicans of late, Obama more resembles Bugs Bunny’s nemesis in this particular cartoon (even the halting speech pattern that is often mistakenly interpreted as being “slow”):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRNuivruJaw
Comrade Mary
@Midnight Marauder: Oh, fie on Wiki! I’ll take the story told by Chuck Jones’ honorary niece.
Noonan
Gotta give Sully props on this one. Sure, he might over-use the metaphor a bit. But it works.
Hob
@EEH: Huh? Seemed like a pretty straightforward census form to me – simpler than what I remember of the last two.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Noonan:
One thing Sully knows well from being on the right – if you want to win in the court of public opinion, you pick a simple appealing metaphor that people can easily understand without thinking about it too much, and then you beat that sucker to death, just hammer it into the ground over and over and over again. Repetition really does win in the long run. It is annoying as all hell if you see through the propaganda, especially when coming from the other side, but it is hard to argue that this technique doesn’t deliver results. And this is something the Dems are notoriously bad at. Sully is doing for Obama what the Reps did for Reagan back in his day – pick a simple, appealing public image that people will remember (in Reagan’s case it was the aww, shucks grandfatherly image) and hammer it home at every chance.
EEH
@Hob: This isn’t the official census form (and you’re right, it was simpler than the last one.)
My husband is a registered Republican and this was a fund-raiser mailing that they called a “census” with all sorts of questions on his views such as does he trust Democrats to protect America against terrorists? Is he happy that Democrats control everything? And so on.
The back page is really what it’s all about as it’s all about how much money he’s willing to send the RNC.
AxelFoley
@dmsilev: Dammit, I loved the Road Runner cartoons
Y’know, that’s a damn good question.
Hob
@EEH: Oops, I wasn’t reading carefully, sorry. That sounds ridiculous (and predictable).
Dug
@The Populist: Agreed. Anyone want to say that I’ve drunk the kool-aid? Fine. You can say I’ve gargled it for all I care. I am fucking stoked that this man is president. I was a believer before the primaries, and he’s lived up to my expectations while multiple naysayers said he was bound to lose to Hillary/McCain/The GOP/(fill in the blank).
Ed Drone
@SpotWeld:
Not Dr. Who, but “Down in the Black Gang,” I think it was called. Interesting story — the universe runs on tears, and there are people who must see to it there are enough.
Ed
Ed Drone
@JGabriel:
Wasn’t that what General Bullmoose said about Joe Btfsplk? The General liked the little bad-luck klutz because ‘he was the color of money.’
Ed
lawguy
When are you guys gonna wise up?
fucen tarmal
how about boehner and o’connell as the ambiguously gay duo.
Beth in VA
@Pigs & Spiders: I agree with you Pigs and Spiders. Mistermix, it’s just a gesture of an analogy, not a dissertation.
booch221
I find Sully’s blog a lot more interesting than yours…