June 10, 2004 by s.z.

Today, on a Very Special Episode of Family Circle The Cartoon (You can see it here): A blissful Jeffy is rubbing his back with what looks like a turtle on a stick.  An angry Dolly, her ponytail pulled really tight, points her finger at him and says, "That's a spaghetti picker-upper, not a back scratcher." Analysis: Today's strip is a Freudian exploration of the forces operating within Jeff Keane.  Jeffy, who is happily scratching his back with a kitchen implement, represents Jeff's id, the childlike part of his personality that operates on "the pleasure principle" and does whatever the hell it feels like.  Jeff's inner child, Jeffy, is saying that he feels the need to scratch an itch.  For it seems that a French media chain has made Jeff a very handsome offer for the rights to his father's strip -- they plan to turn it into a risque adult sex romp cartoon.  .  Jeff really wants to sell, as the money he would receive would allow him to forego cheap spaghetti dinners, and instead get full body massages by gorgeous half-naked women.   Plus, giving up Family Circle would give him the time to become the serious artist he's always thought he could become if he didn't have to draw hydrocephalic kids day after day. However, the stern, conventional, nagging Dolly represents Jeff's super ego.  She reminds Jeff that Family Circle is what it is: a trite yet boring depiction of family values -- and that's the only thing it should be used for.  Doing anything uncoventional, like selling out to the French or visiting a dominatrix for some flogging with kitchen tools, would be very wrong and lead to disgrace and expulsion from polite society, as well as a finger-poking from his father. With all of this churning inside him, Jeff is bombarded with a fortnight's worth of Reagan-rhapsodizing.  He hears people say that Mr. Reagan is in a better place.  He realizes that the former President is getting a lot more praise and attention now than when he was alive.  He notes that everyone seems to love Ronnie now.  Jeff begins to think that that perhaps helping along the elderly who need a little shove to reach their final reward could actually be an act of  kindness and love. Jeff might have dismissed his new, dark idea if only the Reagan coverage wasn't so constant and sustained.  Eventually, even Dolly tells Jeffy that a spaghetti picker-upper can indeed be a back-scratcher .. and a fairly good bludgeon. Prediction: Bil Keane will be shuffling off this mortal coil before the end of the year.  6:30:03 AM

Pundits Say the Darndest Things The Psycho Pot From Hell's Tirade Against the Kettle You are mean. You are cruel. You are thoughtless, and you are a hateful human being. You don't have a soul. And you don't care about anybody but yourself.  And you do this for shock value so that your name could be noticed. You're a slob. You're an absolutely -- you're a hateful human being to do this to families that are suffering. There's no excuse for it. There's no rationale for what you're doing. You're mean, cruel and thoughtless. -- Sean Hannity offering some constructive criticism of Ted Rall's mean-spirited piece about Ronald Reagan.  Ted's reply: "Well, there you go again, Sean." George Washington, Abraham Lincoln: Clean out Your Lockers, You've Been Replaced America's greatest president has gone home. God worked through Ronald Reagan on Earth and now He's taken him back.    -- Ann Coulter, in a column where she claims that Reagan wasn't the likable guy that the liberal press is praising this week, but actually an unredeemed wingnut like herself. Conservative Radio Host Poses Leading Question About Reagan's Sexuality I was right in the cauldron of this, and the things that were being said. I personally will never forget this, reacting to it in my own way on the radio, but they were saying just like Reagan caused homelessness, Reagan caused AIDS, Reagan allowed AIDS to happen. I would parse what they said with the utmost logic. There's one way this disease is spread. Does anybody know something about Reagan we don't know? --Rush Limbaugh, teaching kids that contrary to what they might have learned in heath class, there's only one way to get AIDS -- and if you're not gay, you don't have to worry about it. 3:20:05 AM

A Dry Alcoholic with Delusions of Adequacy Bush on the Couch is the book that Charles Krauthammer would write in that Star Trek parallel universe (the one where he'd have a goatee and would be a liberal).  Here's some info on the book from the Wash Post's Reliable Source: We can assure you nobody will be caught perusing this book in the White House. "Bush on the Couch," authored by a longtime Washington psychiatrist who has never met or treated the president, offers "an exploration of Bush's psyche" that delves into such touchy topics as his baby sister's death, his relationship with his mother and father and his drinking history. In the book, to be released Tuesday, Justin A. Frank, a clinical professor at George Washington University Medical Center, claims President Bush exhibits "sadistic tendencies" and suffers from "character pathology," including "grandiosity" and "megalomania" -- viewing himself, America and God as interchangeable. Frank told us yesterday that his opinions are based on publicly available materials, adding, "I've never met the president or any members of his family." A Democrat who once headed the Washington chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, Frank concludes in the book: "Our sole treatment option -- for his benefit and for ours -- is to remove President Bush from office . . . before it is too late." Frank, who has practiced for 35 years, told us he began noting Bush's mannerisms in the fall of 2002. "I was really very unsettled by him and I started watching everything he did and reading what he wrote, and watching him on videotape. I felt he was disturbed." In the book, he writes that Bush "fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated." I'm not a psychiatrist, but I do concur with Dr. Frank's treatment option for Bush.  And I agree that watching Bush is unsettling; Laura creeps me out too.  Maybe they can get family counseling after they leave the White House. 3:05:25 AM