Ha ha ha! Oh man, you folks will have to forgive me. I'm just beside myself with laughter. That's what a few minutes at Right Wing Cartoon Watch will do for you. It's equal parts socially relevant, hilarious, and incisive! Check out this gem:
This feels an awful lot like one of those "circle all the things wrong with this picture" things that used to run in the Sunday comics. If you have a spare hour I can try to identify them all. Where to begin.
What is this cartoon's message? It's clearly not laced with a lot of deep meaning. I'm pretty sure that its intended audience (idiots) will get the point fairly quickly – those fucking Democrats…voting for them is a vote for tax rates of, what, at least 75%. Maybe more! You've got to hand it to the right. Their ability to chant the same histrionic talking bitching points independent of facts is nearly superhuman.
Never mind, for instance, the fact that not a single Democratic candidate (let alone the three pictured) have proposed anything like a tax hike – excepting people who earn over $200,000 annually. The "average man" (whom the "artist" subtlely invokes with the jeans and baseball cap) will see nothing close to a tax hike, let alone one that will turn his paycheck into pocket change. If this guy's paycheck amounts to peanuts, isn't that more likely the fault of the fact that real wages have been declining for 30 years? Nope. It's our 25% Federal income tax rate.
So none of the candidates are proposing higher taxes. In light of that fact, the artist's point must be…hmm…I've got it! Our taxes are already so cripplingly high that merely electing someone who won't cut them every 8 months is enough to resign John Q. Public to the poorhouse. Aside from the fact that we essentially have the lowest tax burden in the industrialized world, that makes perfect sense.
The right are just plain lazy and facts have absolutely no impact on them. Honestly, how long would it take to think of some sort of legitimate criticism of Clinton or Obama? Five minutes? Gosh, that would be difficult. Instead this guy takes the typical right-wing easy way out, harping on the same half-dozen tired, repetitive, irrelevant talking points. Their minds are on autopilot and reality is irrelevant. Clinton could abolish all Federal income taxes and this cartoon would probably look exactly the same. I mean, God forbid America's right wing "humorists" and social commentators think of something new to piss and moan about.
Chris says:
Taxes. That's about all Republicans have. Pretty sad. It is their answer for everything. You could sum up 4 hours of a Rush Limbaugh show as "Lower taxes!" in a really pompous, ass-whipe-of-a voice. And, its really no friggin' surprise Repub administrations are completely incompetent.
BK says:
Agreed on the taxes bit – overused, undersubstantiated and completely based in the land of make-believe.
Luckily, I think more and more people are seeing through this gradeschool BS level argument (and that's being generous) – especially after the blunder that was TABOR in Colarado. (It was proposed here in Wisconsin and had traction, but never enough to become law). People who live in mid-western, northeastern and the west coast get rightfully antsy when leaders start accurately equating tax cuts with bad schools, more crime, piss-poor roads and infrastructre, deteriorating parks and vanashing green space.
No one who doesn't already live there wants to live in a state like Mississippi or Arkansas.
What I think is worth mentioning is the not-so-subtle making Obama look like a monkey (which the left has done to W) and making Hillary look really fat, which I don't quite understand.
Buck says:
Great rant… and right on the mark!
cerb says:
RWCW should have an entire section to just laughing at Mallard Fillmore.
Batocchio says:
Thanks for the shout-out, and very well put. Many conservatives – and most right-wingers – only have a few standard attacks, and this is one of them. On a related note, ain't it sad that the MSM just doesn't challenge their "cutting taxes always raises revenues" crap?
On the Mallard Fillmore angle, we covered some strips in one installment due to reader requests, but they're so lame once seemed enough. If you see an exceptionally atrocious one, feel free to pass it along!
Ed says:
Well, the cartoonists have a hard time with Obama – there is no such thing as a political cartoon that doesn't mock the person's appearance – exaggerating Bush's ears, Kerry's forehead, Clinton's chin, etc. And Obama does have him some giant ears. So I'm willing to give them a pass on that as not being particularly race-specific.
As for Mallard Fillmore, most of it is so fucking stupid that I'm not sure there would be a lot of fun/challenge/fulfillment from mocking it. Beating up on a 6 year old goes from fun to shameful pretty rapidly.
Kreggg says:
this might explain it:
Kreggg says:
Oh I see, no html allowed:
http://www.brainspout.com/blog/images/map_edu.gif
Sam says:
Did you ever see the Mallard Fillmore parody printed in "America (the Book)" by Jon Stewart. It's among the most painful skewerings I've ever witnessed. I couldn't locate an actual image, but you can read about it here:
http://ccinsider.comedycentral.com/photos/uncategorized/mfparodyamericathebook.jpg
Peggy says:
I don't know–I feel like if Joe Mathlete can make me laugh at Marmaduke, there must be some sort of genius up to the task of making Mallard Filmore funny.
http://marmadukeexplained.blogspot.com/
Not that it's me, or that I know whom it might be. And of course it's possible that we'd rather have, like, a cure for cancer or AIDS than a way to laugh (with?) Mallard Filmore. But still.