Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for February 19, 2012

GT, time to start working on Santorum.

Santorum . . . lol, lol!It is quite remarkable how far to the fringe Fox-Limbaugh has driven the followers. It’s amazing they can even breathe out there.Karl Rove is pulling his hair out . . . what little he has left.

Good call. It’s Feb. 19. Santorum has taken too much now.

Santorum is surging from behind, but in November, Obama will wipe him up.

What a shame. Such a promising field. And all of them had their chance at being a frontrunner. To be the guy, (or girl) to take on the “weakest President in history”. Only to end up with a trio of, which one is worse.

The typical voters are Stooges.

Funny how GT ignores Ron Paul.

Usually the “throw-away” top tier of panels on a Sunday strip don’t matter (since most newspapers don’t carry them), but today it did make a difference, reading it here instead of in my paper. And Newt’s adultery isn’t the deal-breaker, it’s the fact that he’s totally CORRUPT that’s the deal-breaker. As for jrmerm’s idiotic ranting, all I can do is sigh.

When Al Gore claims to have invented the Internet, he’s a liar. But Newt is grandiose in a good way.

Nicely done.

Amen!

Panel 5, on comparing himself with others, reminds me more of Obama. It’s people like I see here that brought us to this low place, and will be responsible if Obama DOES get re-elected. It’s mass ignorance.

The typical commentators on today’s strip are responding to Obama exactly the way these typical voters respond to Newt.

Headley’s (and GBT’s) experiment proves that typical voters and Doonesbury readers, eager to show off their opinions, ignore the ideas or meanings conveyed by a politician’s words because it’s easier to pick up images instead.

The images are not objective or historical. Their meaning comes purely from association, not from analytical content. Gingrich’s “Lincoln” stands for his adultery, and his “Wright Brothers” means his unethical behavior.

Or maybe it’s the other way around. What difference does it make? Headley and the popular media operate in a world based on appearances (Greek phenomena) instead of intellectual reality (noumena).

Socrates explained that images dominate the phenomenal world, whereas the real world can be known only by using your mind (Greek nous). Phenomena or images, as Headley’s experiment proves, are the basis for opinion (doxa, whence “orthodox” meaning “right opinion”).

If you want knowledge rather than opinion, you’ll have to use your mind. Unlike most cartoonists, GBT keeps our eye on the truth by hinting that we need to think beyond his images.

That’s one reason he won’t create an icon for Obama—other than the WHITE house that Trudeau uses to offset the Obama-haters’ image of a BLACK man.

@jrmerm

Your series of verbal images are a choice example of meaningless opinion (doxa; see my comment above).

“America, its values, history, traditions, as well as Western civilization in general”—-you throw out these images without thinking or caring what they mean. When I spoke of “analytical content,” I was suggesting you might think about the complex meaning that your words carry.

For instance, think (if you can) about the image of “Western civilization in general.” I suspect that redundant “in general” was tacked on to discourage analysis, or at any rate to spare you the trouble of particularizing (Europe as opposed to Muslim civilization? Western culture vs. Oriental? Texas vs. the elite world of Harvard graduates?)

Ah yes, the American tradition continues. Totally political animals on the left and right, screw the people and what’s right for the country, just get elected/re-elected. So once more we vote for the lesser of evils. This time around that’s a tough choice…

“What about the deal-maker of THE ONLY anti-war candidate running in this election cycle? Does anybody doubt that Ron Paul would not — as CiC — pull the troops out of our disasterous, criminal military engagements?”

If our wars of adventure/wars of influence were the only issue on which I were basing my vote, then yes I’d vote for the anti-war candidate. But that’s not the only issue (although I agree it’s a big one that ought to be talked about more). Perhaps President Paul would order all the troops home on Day One. But what would he do on Days 2-1460? That’s what concerns me.

The conservatives on this thread believe we were living in a capitalist utopia on January 19, 2009; home prices were stable, the financial sector was strong, and everyone who wanted a job had a job. There was prosperity at home and peace abroad.

Then, January 20, 2009 came and everything went to hell in a hand basket. Children and widows were thrown out into the street. Factories shuttered their gates, and all of a sudden banks had no money. It must be the fault of that Socialist , Marxist, Nazi, Atheist, Muslim, Kenyan, Chicago-style politician from Hawaii’s fault. We were all living in a literal paradise before he showed up.-Obama admires and wants to uses Lincoln as a role model. He does not claim to be as great as Lincoln.

Whee…this dog hunts. Yeah, time for weak, sanctimonious Santorum to meet the lawnmower. His fate is as grass….none of these miseducated weasel Reeps has a clue what Presidential power looks like NOW…welcome to the big time, chumpies. You’re in the kill zone now.

SIGH. Let’s face it, Doonesbury’s “experiment” could have had ANY of the other dead celebrities (no offense to people who worship dead celebrities……..) and would have made the same exact point. As for the idiot jrmerm: let me quote:

Typical voters, when I use the words “far left wing radical; hates America, its values, history, traditions, as well as Western civilization in general; has social and political ties to terrorists, revolutionaries and anti-semites”, who comes to mind?

No intelligent Republican no intelligent conservative, could POSSIBLY believe that Obama “hates America and Western civilization.” I’m sorry, but most of the people against Newt ARE Republicans! War heroes like Bob Dole or John McCain, not to mention the intellectual descendants of William F. Buckley………..so forth and so forth.

jrmerm said, 11 minutes ago

@palin drome

Please repeat that in English.

Palindrome did use English including the word THINK twice. Try thinking about the words you are using… do they mean anything or are they just sound bites? Think about using actual facts in statements.

@jrmerm Please do please DO tell us who (and or whom) you DID have in mind to satisfy your earlier questions? (And I’m sorry for calling your ranting “idiotic”: I had no right to do that on such short acquaintance). Once more, NO intelligent Republican or conservative would ascribe your attributes to Obama. (Just for the record, I’m personally a pro-life moderate, does this change anything for you?)

If you follow the posters and their daily comments, you should realize you’re out of your league. Mostly they’re well educated and understand what constitutes “thought.” Follow frequently without knee-jerk comments, and you just might learn something.

Anything unfamiliar to jrmerm—-Socrates, for example, or the literal meaning of “phenomenal”—-he dismisses as gibberish. He’s the Humpty-Dumpty of this blog (“When I use a word, it means exactly what I want it to mean, no more and no less”).

While he’s waiting for his next answer to “come to mind” (a telling phrase, given the way he thinks), he might do some self-examining of his latest inspired utterance and tell us what “Western civilization in particular” refers to.

I know Gingrich provides so much material, but Santorum is the one leading in the polls.

jrmerm – I had no problem following palin drome’s argument. You’re apparently out of your league here.:As for your question “who comes to mind?”. Answer: Nobody. The number of people on the left who fit your description are miniscule and irrelevant at this point in history.

Hey! They wus planted! Good one G.T. Just like our very own Trudeau. Thanks.

Joshua Speed?

That is really disingenuous crap. You load a sentence with the phrases that the right wing has endlessly used to attack Obama, and then chortle when someone assumes you meant Obama. “Made you look!” If I say “big fat blowhard racist sexist bigot drug-addict talk-show egotist” and ask you if anyone comes to mind … See how that works? It doesn’t matter if the accusations are true, only that we have come to associate them with someone. And no, there is no left-wing party in the US. There are only two: the Conservative Party (i.e. the ones who are clinging to the status quo), otherwise known as the Democrats; and the Regressive Party (i.e. the ones who want to tear down a century of progress), otherwise known as the Republicans. There is no considerable portion of the population who actually wants to move foreward into the 21st century, which is why the future of this country is so much in doubt.

Posted by Doughfoot late last night:

“And no, there is no left-wing party in the US. There are only two: the Conservative Party (i.e. the ones who are clinging to the status quo), otherwise known as the Democrats; and the Regressive Party (i.e. the ones who want to tear down a century of progress), otherwise known as the Republicans. There is no considerable portion of the population who actually wants to move forward into the 21st century, which is why the future of this country is so much in doubt.”

Bingo!