Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for July 23, 2010

Cluelessness, thy name is Roland.

Sarah eats hot dogs for breakfast?

Who watches the watchmen?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Stalkers to the left of me, stalkers to the right, stuck in the middle with you.

Sarah is not in the middle of anything, politics or intelligence level.

Sheik Yerbouti,

“cackle”

I wonder if he has some racey pics for the tabloids.

Hot dogs for breakfast!? Sarah and I finally agree on something!

Can’t be as good as pizza for breakfast!

Quick, erect another 14’ tall code-violating fence!

jeffc42, she’s in the middle of this week’s Doonesbury.

It probably wasn’t hot dogs… more likely moose sausage.

Moose dogs?

I have also discovered that you really can’t see Russia from your window and as for your party…I saw no one drinking tea. You for one, had three lemon drops before switching to shots.

Party girl

Palin never said she could see Russia from her window - Tina Fey did.

I’d love to do shots and party with a girl who can field-dress a moose.

I agree, Nemesys: Tina Fey said that, parodying Sarah Palin’s claim that seeing Russia from parts of Alaska gave her a keen understanding of foreign relations. Fey’s remark was funnier; Palin’s more horrifically & arrogantly stupid.

As for your lust for such a woman, go for it. Just don’t claim that your good-time moose-girl should be listened to for anything but how to have a good time with a moose.

Until GT finally had SP appear in today’s strip, I was ready to write this arc off as another aging male’s pornographic fascination with SP’s struggle to corral her flabby-grandmother body.

GT dispels the pornography latent in an invisibly present SP not just by talking about her digestive tract, but by drawing her profile in the second panel.

GT centers our attention on her utterly bestial eyes—-a blemish that this erstwhile “beauty queen” learned to mask with those schoolmarm glasses. (Contrast Tina Fey’s intelligent eyes, or Hillary Clinton’s.)

Hot Dogs! The only thing she can cook?

BrianCrook, Palin obviouslty flubbed that question early in her national exposure, but having been in Alaska myself I know that there’s a good number of Russian folks there, and that Russian culture is imbeded in much of Alaskan culture. Since the cold war, US military doctrine has long anticipated that Russian troops, ships, and missiles would likely come through Alaska first, so Alaskans have always kept official and covert eyes on their neighbors for very practical reasons. They take it for granted.

It’s not unlike people in Arizona knowing a lot about the geography and culture of their neighbors to the South, and being able to react according to local conditions in a practical way that smug Washington politicians and their elistist supporters could never quite comprehend as well. If you think that’s stupid, well, carry on, comrade.

I submit that as a result of literally living next door to some of them, Palin DOES know more about the Russian mindset than Obama does. Given the same access to intelligence data, she’d be in a better position to deal with them.

Depends on which Russian culture you have in view, Nemesys. Over the years, Obama has gotten to know much more than SP ever will about the strong Russian urban culture in Chicago and New York. As for interpreting intelligence data, do you really believe that SP would show any more comprehension of that than she did of Katie Couric’s questions?

Nemesys, I hope those Russians are not illegals. I never saw any Russians in Alaska. Why would they be coming through Alaska now the Cold War has toned down? I thought our troops stationed there were the ones keeping an eye on the ice, water and skies.

palin drome, good point re: the urban cultures, but I don’t know how much Obama had to directly deal with issues associated with them, so I don’t know. Just about everything that goes on in Alaska has Russian nuances associated with it.

As to your question, yes. Palin is not a professional politican, in that policians are expert bullshytters and with about 3 weeks of national exposure, she wasn’t ready to pile it on. For better or for worse, she’s learned skills since. And although Hollywood-culture Americans do tend to elect slick-talking spokesmodels, there’s no association that such people make better leaders or statesmen, or are ultimatelmately more competent as measured by job performance.

William Krystal has a column today that touches on these points from the perspective of “Consequences”, in which he compares Churchill’s prophecy to international affairs today. His point is that years of slick-talking b/s are coming to their inevitable conclusion:

http://weeklystandard.com/articles/yes-period-consequences

Wow, Nemesys, your comments are funny (once one wades through the misspellings). I got a true l.o.l. from your weak argument that because there are a “good number of Russian folks” in Alaska, Sarah Palin knows “more about the Russian mindset than Obama does”. I love it! A fifth-generation Russian immigrant will think the same way as the people in the Kremlin! In addition, Palin was trying—and failing, as you admit—to answer a question about her experience in foreign relations. Being able to SEE part of Siberia hardly qualifies you in ANY foreign relations. She gave an answer even weaker than yours. I am amazed that you want a president who is not even as bright as you are, when your answer is, say, one watt.

As to your argument about Arizonans, it falls, too. Your beloved Bush-Dick was from Texas, and his policies toward México are decidedly different from those of its future senator, Jack Abramoff’s good friend, J.D. Hayworth.

Furthermore, Nemesys, as for smugness, you have all of D.C. beat, considering your clamoring for Shirley Sherrod’s head even faster than did Tom Vilsack. I trust now that you have recanted from that stance & are now clamoring for Andrew Breitbart’s being sued for slander.

Finally, I am impressed that you are all set to campaign for Palin for president. I have never seen such a desperate Palin apologist. She is no better versed in foreign relations than she was two years ago when Senator McCain foisted her upon us, and her flubs, bigotry, & lies are as rampant as ever. Have a good time with the semi-term governor.

In re William Kristol: He prefers to see thousands of Americans & Iranians die and for the U.S. to take an illegal act just because he does not want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. He denies the efficacy of the stimuli, even though they stopped the Great Republican Recession from turning into a depression. He calls for an end to procrastination when President Obama has accomplished more in his first eighteen months than any president since Franklin Roosevelt. The procrastination has been all on the side of the Congressional Republicans, whose entire procedure is delay & say nay. His thinking is shallow & pathetic. Why does anyone read the words of Dan Quayle’s chief of staff?

the real bs is believing that Palin somehow knows anything about the Russian mindset based on the six (or so) people that live on the coast of the Bering Sea, or that she has acquired any skills other than the ability to write legibly on her hand. wasn’t Palin elected governor? wasn’t she elected mayor before that? didn’t she resign as governor to prepare for a presidential run? that sure sounds like politician to me. my opinion of politicians doesn’t include the term professional.

William Kristol betrays the historical roots of republicanism (see my avatar) when he plays the neolib game of prematurely judging President Obama’s administration. Comparisons with FDR are particularly skewed, considering how abjectly Obama has failed to control the bankers.

Neither side wins points for the Sherrod fiasco, but Obama’s party will only look defensive if it countenances a lawsuit to excuse Agriculture’s unjust firing of its employee. Someone should have told the White House not to confuse this brown Sherrod with Sherrod Brown.

BrianCrook, thanks for the comments, and apologies for the spelling typos. A few thoughts to leave you with for what I hope is a nice weekend for you.

1) Thanks for resorting to typo comments, insults, and general personal attacks in your response. I must have hit a nerve. I understand your preference to stick to Rule 5, but we’re all friends here.

2) I do apoligize for Shirley Sherrod. I’m touched you noticed. Obviously, I didn’t have access to the full record, as the NAACP and White House did, but my reaction was similar to theirs.

3) I have never advocated for Palin for president. I said exactly the opposite yesterday, in fact. Please pay attention.

4) I have no opinions on Kristol’s dire predictions, but those predictions themselves were not the point of suggesting the link. You did understand my point, even as you toss the red herring, so mission accomplished.

Have a nice weekend.

Nemesys, my apologies for overlooking your voice against Sarah Palin’s running for president. By the way, I agree with you that she neither should nor will. Why should she? She will lose (she has HUGE negatives), and it would be, for her, a step down in income, which is what she desires most.

As for President Obama, your claim that he should not have run is dead wrong. He is the best president of the last nine years, easily, and though much too conservative, he is slowly cleaning up the dreadful messes left by eight years of Bush-Dick & fourteen years of a Republican congress.

I also must disagree with your claim that Palin ain’t “same-old same-old”. She is simply a working-class Dan Quayle in heels: just as arrogant, just as ignorant, just as stupid. He was a Ken doll; she is a Barbie.

I am sorry that you found personal attacks in my earlier comment. I delivered none, and I am very glad that you are sorry for your prejudging of Shirley Sherrod, and I am sorry that you are tarring Obama with the brush of prejudgment, when it seems to have come from Secretary Vilsack. The moment that the N.A.A.C.P. saw the entire speech, the organization retracted its prejudgment. You needed spurring from me, for which you are welcome. I trust that you will not trust Andrew Breitbart any longer and will rethink his earlier slanders.

As for William Kristol, I am not sure what your mission is, since his editorial is w/out substance, but if you enjoyed it, that is your business. I thank you for wishing me a nice weekend. I intend to relax. I wish you the best of weekends yourself.

Note to Neocon: This “neocon/neolib” business is nonsensical. These terms are as meaningless as “politically correct” or “activist judge”. The government need not take any part in a lawsuit against Breitbart. That can be all Sherrod.

Daniel Schorr died today. Let us all remember a man who worked for accuracy all his life, who was such a good journalist that Richard Nixon considered him an enemy. THAT was a compliment.

My best wishes to all.

neolib? Again?