Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for January 26, 2012

I like the little car the GOP candidate come in.

Roland, whaddaya mean, “Colbert recently outpolled two REAL candidates …”? You tryin’ ta say he’s not a REAL candidate? Shame! Fie!

So THAT’S why Romney’s always smiling on the campaign trail!

All these Republican candidates are clowns.

Reagan made the movie with a Chimpanzee, not a monkey.

Well, don’t most of the Republican candidates have a show on Shlox Snooze? That qualifies.

And Colbert is certainly the smartest and best candidate running.

Hey, dudes and dudettes! Old saying: “Much truth is spoken, or acted out, in jest.” Colbert is a throwback to the court jester of European medieval times, who could “get away” with “speaking truth to power”. The jester could confront the king, no matter how powerful, in a way nobody else could. Certainly not a powerful lord of a large castle who ruled many knights (aristocrats) and farms run by serfs (potential foot soldiers) who could, and sometimes did, organize enough other lords to rebel and fight his-and-their own king. They would CHALLENGE His Excellency, FIGHT him, and sometimes OVERTHROW him, USURP his throne and grab his lands, people (including wives and courtesans), castles, and other wealth (such gold, jewels, objets d’art, etc.). Afterward the victorious lord becomes the new king — the king is dead; long live the king! — “was obliged” to kill the king and ALL of the king’s descendants in order to head off a counter-challenge by, say, an overthrown king’s grown prince, or years later, by his growing-up prince.) The court jester could get away with SAME MESSAGE (such as, “Mene mene tekel upharsin”) as used by the upstart Lord, because the jester (having no power save the weapon of truth-against-power) manifested no economic / military threat, whereas the Lord (having great military and economic power) WAS a threat. The idea of this kind of clown/actor/jester goes back even further — to Hosea of the Hebrew Bible. Under God’s orders, Hosea marries a “ho” (short for wHOre) Gomer by name, in a “court jester” type of “street theatre”. Hosea represents the Lord and Gomer represents the supposedly “one God only” (monotheist) nation of Israel. In the “street theatre” plot, Hosea marries the ho Gomer (a good deal for her, since Hosea presumably was definitely NOT “all hat and no cattle”. True to her character, Gomer abandons her husband and their children and commits adultery on them. Under Jewish Halakha law Hosea has the right to have Gomer stoned to death. But under God’s countermanding order Hosea does not do so, does not follow God’s own Halakha law, but allows Hosea to SHOW MERCY to the adulterous Gomer, spare her life and remarry her. (She must have been a “looker”!) Message: Since Hosea reps God, and Gomer reps whoring-after-other-gods Israel, if God allows Gomer to return home and re-marry the ever-faithful Hosea, then the message obtains: If Israel will forsake its lovers (foreign gods) and return to the only-one-and-true God Yaweh, then God will not destroy the people of Israel. Message: Mercy! Grace! Abundant pardon! Of course, we know from ancient history, both sacred (Bible) and secular (archaeology) that Israel — both kingdoms, the northern one and the southern one, subjects under two dynasties — was destroyed, the northern kingdom by the Assyrians, and some years later the southern one by the Babylonians.  As a “jester” candidate speaking truth to power, Colbert stands in far better company than any of the candidates running in the GOP primary! And so obtains the old saying, “Much truth is spoken in jest” = “Much truth is spoken by jester”. Bottom line: Colbert may be the greatest “court jester” in our times in our nation. (Jon Stewart isn’t really a “court jester” type, since he doesn’t “act out” in that particular tradition. By contrast Garry Trudeau IS a “court jester” type, who “acts out” via his comic Doonsbury.)

Hey, Mitt, how do you like losing to clowns?

The clown king has spoken.

Musn’t talk about W that way…

Short answer – yes.

You really should not speak of Bush that way. Or was that a not very thinly veiled racist remark?

Bush loved running against a bland rich boy; Obama should appreciate doing it too, especially since at least chunks of Kerry’s party didn’t hate him.

I thought the racial slur was quite blatant – 3K quality.

This is how he stumbled into the Massachusetts governorship, but then he quickly became a lame duck once the voters woke up and saw how much damage he was inflicting here.

You’all are giving clowns a bad name.

I see the racists are out this morning. There should be an equivalent to Godwin’s Law for people who sink to comparing people of color to monkeys or chimps.

Run into a clown and he falls down real funny like…

We had a rhesus monkey who thought he was president for eight years…

“Corporations are people” decision was 50 years ago JFWIW

Up until now, corporations were limited in political affairs.. not now… that’s the real change

Colbert is imitating that movie with Robin WIlliams and Brewsters millions.

some things don’t fit on your bumper sticker, grasshopper.

Colbert’s parody is simply more honest than their promises.

well you ought to be a happy man then!

I am SO glad I am not a Rebubbacan.

Hey, space is cheap here, and anyway, I thought it was interesting enough to read.

Newts, monkeys, clowns, comedians, chimpanzees and racists; how about a skunk? Mitt’s father apparently never told him what my father told me, that when one wrestles a skunk, no one comes away smelling good. And when it comes to tangling with ol’ Newter, Willard’s for sure wrestling a skunk! Then add schmeer of santorum and OMG!

2 cannibals were eating a clown. One got a weird look on his face and asked the other , Does this taste funny to you?

The only reason Stephen Colbert outpolled them in South Carolina is because he is a native son.

Well then, Romney is in good company.

With all this simian talk, has anyone tried to put themselves in the shoe of the monkey?

Are your sheets and hood back from the cleaners?

“If a monkey can win, why not a clown?” Yeah, Bush did win. But Newt? Not so much.

Good.

they are all just puppets to unseen power that the regular folks. ie ’ us’ will never meet , kinda of like the bosons higgs particle