June 4, 2004 by s.z.

Family Circle Sees All, Tells Some Day whatever in our quest to find the secret of Bil Keane's inexplicably popular comic strip. The Cartoon (You can see it here) Today's panel shows us the secret world of a cartoonist.  Daddy (whose eyes were taken by the Satanists from The Devil's Rain) has all the usual cartoonist paraphenalia: drafting table, adjustable lamp, filing cabinet, pencil sharpener, and piece of paper.  He is sketching a big circle that is presumably Jeffy's head.  Jeffy, wearing that purple sweater Emma was modeling yesterday, says: "I lost the pencil you lent me.  Can I keep it?" Explanation: There's big money to be made in cartooning -- enough so that if your kid loses one of your pencils, you can buy another!  If YOU can draw Jeff's head, you may have what it takes to become a professional cartoonist, just like Daddy.  Send a check or money order now for my Home Art Institute cartoonist lessons. Prediction: Some readers have already provided their ideas (the big cheaters!)  Here's what they said: The easy explanation is: Biffy represents aWol, the dad with his usual vacant stare due to his glasses, represents the quiescent American public, and the query is in reference to the 2000 election. however, on closer examination, we see that the "desk lamp" is actually an Apollo space capsule, the red "cushion" of the chair is encroaching on the father's space, and the lower regions of the father's body have been sucked into an oily pit. since this is a prediction of the future, we can only assume that this refers to the "Apollo program" for energy independance that John Kerry has made mention of, to free the father from his entrapment in Middle Eastern, and increasingly Soviet, domination of the worldwide oil market. the "pencil" refers to America's pre-eminence in scientific research, and the desire to hold onto it for the new millenium.  YMMV.  -- preznit giv me turkee Little Jeffy, in his faux dewy-eyed innocence, represents Chalabi. Daddy, with his psychopathic blank glare, represents George W. Bush. The pencil is an obvious reference to the WMDs that Chalabi was entrusted with and then promptly lost (or gave to the Iranians - represented by the missing Billy). Daddy (W.) is about to use his own pencil to stab the living daylights out of little Chalabi for his betrayal.I think the meaning of this is clear. --  Pete M.   Hey preznit, I lost the election; can I keep it? Yes! Also the pencil refers to all the bullshit explanations for the Iraq adventure that were only pencilled in and then "lost".  -- Alison  They may be right.    But then again, the cartoon could mean that we grow up to become our fathers.  Jeffy, who used to watch his father draw "Family Circus," grew up to be Jeff Keane, cartoonist.  Little Georgie Bush grew up to be President, just like his Dad. And just like George Bush pere lost his bid for reelection, so too will George Bush fils.  And just as George Sr. lost his pencil (manhood) when his son took his place in the spotlight, so too will George Jr. be emasculated by his progeny, who will eclipse him  in fame and fortune when their Secret Sex Diaries are published.  Family Circle = Circle of Life.  It's pretty profund when you think about it while swilling cough medicine.   8:06:46 AM

Three Ways Bush Could Still Win the Election --by Bruce Walker , writing for the esteemed wingnut opinion site, American Daily. 1.  A Terrorist Plot Could Be Foiled Osama bin Ladin or one of his top henchmen could be captured, and that would immediately give the President a boost. Our intelligence services could overcome and publicly announce a foiled plot to do serious damage in one of our cities. Not would that boost support nationwide, but a foiled plot to murder thousands in Cleveland could swing Ohio, in Miami could swing Florida, in Philadelphia could swing Pennsylvania and so on. Not that Bruce is suggesting that our intelligence services help their President by concocting a terrorist "plot" that they could find and foil.  Of course not!  But if they were going to do it, think of the advantages of setting it Pittsburgh. 2.  Somebody Could Die (Not Kerry, necessarily) Morbidity could also change the race. President Reagan will die someday, and only God, Nancy and his doctors have much of an idea when that might be. When he dies, the nation will realize its loss. Almost everything about the Gipper was good, noble and successful. It would be logical for President Bush to give the eulogy and most Americans would watch. President Reagan was the most popular political figure in the history of California. His funeral and California seeing President Bush at his very best could cause many Californians to sit back and reflect on what principled and compassionate conservatives could do. Reagan was also beloved in the Pacific and Rocky Mountain regions. His death could affect the vote in Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and several other states. President Ford will turn ninety-one on July 14. He is almost universally perceived as a decent man and a president who did the best he could for America in difficult times. His death and the funeral following that would also stop Democrat hate speech and allow the President to address the nation from a sympathetic forum.  President Ford was very popular in Michigan, and that state could easily swing to President Bush in the aftermath of a Ford funeral. [...] What is some Democrat blurts out something bad about a recently dead Reagan or Ford? Republicans could demand that Kerry repudiate it, and if Kerry hesitates, he is lost; if he speaks glowingly of the dead Republican, he weakens his own arguments; if he endorses libel of the dead, he risks a massive exodus of moderates. So, if both Reagan AND Ford were to die, Bush could take at least half a dozen of the undecided states, ensuring his electoral victory.  And since Reagan and Ford are bound to be pass on soon anyway, I'm sure they will be happy to do it now, a crucial time for Bush, so they can help their party by allowing him to speak at their funerals. And then maybe somebody like Michael Moore could be bribed to badmouth the dear departed, making everybody hate Democrats.  It's a plan that can't fail! 3.  Popular People Could Lend Bush Their Support Aside from elections and deaths, another factor in the campaign has not yet been fully grasped by some pundits. President Bush will have some of the most respected surrogates in American history backing him: Zell Miller, Ed Koch, Colin Powell, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I think that this means that Arnold et al. are Bush surrogates -- and they are even better than the real thing, since normal people like them (well, only rabid Republicans like Miller, but the others have their regular-people fans.) None of these men can be dismissed as partisans - Miller and Koch are Democrats. None of these men can be dismissed as right-wing ideologues - all are either moderates or moderately liberal. None of these can be dismissed as "Bush men" - McCain has opposed Bush often; Koch makes no bones about his difference in domestic policy, and so on. Team Bush will be much, much stronger than Team Kerry. Um, couldn't Colin Powell be dismissed as a "Bush man," since he serves in Bush's Cabinet?  And sadly, a Presidential election isn't like a game of kick ball, where you can win by picking the biggest kids to be on your team.  Especially since none of these guys (except Powell) is really ON "Team Bush"-- they have just said  that they support Bush, which doesn't really require them to change his tires or anything significant. It would be easy to get discouraged now. It would also be the height of foolishness. President Bush knows what he is doing and he is doing it now. The result, in November, will be the re-election of the President. Bank on it. Yes, don't get discouraged, bunkies, because the most respected surrogate of ALL is Team Bush: God!  Remember when Pat Robertson said, "I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004. It's shaping up that way."  Robertson went on to say of George, " It doesn't make any difference what he does, good or bad, God picks him up because he's a man of prayer and God's blessing him." So, even if President Bush doesn't know what he's doing, and isn't doing it anyway, the result, in November, will be his reelection.  Because Homeland Security will fake a terrorist plot and terminate a couple of former Presidents , if necessary, to ensure it.  It's God's will. 7:20:29 AM

Inconveniencing VIPs With Criminal Investigations in Wartime The writer of this Wall Street Journal editorial says that while he's glad that Tenet has resigned, he doesn't fault Tenet for everything that went wrong on his watch.  Take those nonexistent stockpiles of WMDs, for example -- the writer doesn't blame Tenet for saying Sadam had them.  Heck, everybody thought he did (well, except some CIA analysts, the weapons inspectors, foreign affairs experts, etc. -- so nobody important).  And invading Iraq has turned out to be such a good thing for all concerned that the writer would forgive Mr. T. his minor bungling -- if only he'd be a good soldier and take full and unilateral responsibility for convincing the naive Colin Powell about the weapons, instead of trying to finger Chalabi.  Because it's silly to believe that Chalabi, a simple brown-skinned foreigner, could have mislead Powell, the intelligence community, and the NY Times all by himself.  [If you're thinking that Chalabi had lots of help from Dick Cheney, Feith, and everybody else who was just looking for a pretext to invade Iraq, then you've been deceived by the CIA's self-serving propaganda campaign yourself, and you too should want Tenet's head on a platter.]  But where Tenet REALLY went wrong (and basically committed treason) was in allowing the investigations of the Plame kerfuffle and the Chalabi indiscretion.  Sure, the Plame leak not only curtailed her career, compromised a cover mechanism, and could have endangered human sources, but the investigation caused busy White House people to have to talk to the FBI (and Bush to spend his own money to hire an attorney).  And sure, the Chalabi betrayal of our ability to read Iranian communications resulted in the loss of an important listening post and put American lives in danger, but now Pentagon people are being inconvenienced, and they have a war to run!  So, these investigations are damaging our country's national security, and Tenet should have done everything he could to stop them.  Yes, a good DCI would have covered up both events, even if that meant killing Plame and Chalabi.  You know, for the good of the war. Well, that's my interpretation of this editorial, but possibly I'm misrepresenting the editorial writer's words.  Let's read a couple of paragraphs from the piece, just to double check my fairness and balance. What is unforgivable is the Agency's ex post facto attempt to blame its WMD errors on everyone else. Leak after media leak citing "intelligence sources" has blamed the Pentagon, Vice President Cheney's advisers and now Iraqi exiles. The most recent stories offer the amazing theory that the CIA, Colin Powell and the New York Times were all somehow gulled on WMD by one man--former exile Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress. We are apparently supposed to believe that our $40-billion-a-year intelligence services were duped by the same person our spooks have insisted could not be trusted ever since he called them out for a botched coup attempt in the middle of the 1990s. This is bad enough as political posterior-covering. But the blame-shifting has also done serious damage to U.S. policy in Iraq, by fanning internal warfare and unleashing prosecutors on colleagues. The Joe Wilson-Valerie Plame affair turned a trifling dispute over yellowcake uranium in Niger into a debilitating criminal hunt for "leakers." And the latest attacks on Mr. Chalabi have now led to an FBI investigation of Pentagon officials who have a war to win. Whether or not Mr. Tenet has participated in any of this, he has been unwilling or unable to stop it. No, I think paraphrased this editorial fairly accurately --  proving that we don't need political humorists these days, because the product comes pre-satirized for our convenience. 6:07:33 AM