Barack Obama
The nominees for Least Helpful Asterisk are:- Global Warming, ascribed to "US Senate Report"
- Global Cooling, just ask John McCain, John McLaughlin, John McMuffin? I give up.
- School Vouchers Work, otherwise why would The Washington Times say they did?
- Barack Obama said this. In case the caricature and speech balloon were not enough for Mallard's readers, there's an asterisk which directs you to his name.
* See the Internet
10 comments:
Vote for 'Barack Obama'; though given that ducky's readers apparently need directions to follow the dense, complex, and organic format of a two-panel comic, it is entirely possible that the asterisk was, in fact, necessary for them.
I have to say Global Cooling and the reference to someone, apparently, named John McCagwn. I have no idea of who this guy is or his relevance to the topic. Barack Obama, though redundant, is comprehensible.
I voted for School Vouchers Work. At least this wasn't the worst instance of putting words in people's mouths.
By the way, have I mentioned that burgling houses while dressed in women's undergarments is an entertaining way to spend an evening*?
* Mallard Fillmore
"Barack Obama" - thank you, Bruce. This is the first time you've made me genuinely laugh out loud. I'd love to believe that the absurdity of this was intentional, and not just incompetence.
Honorable Mention: John McCagwm (looks Welsh to me).*
* Me.
For the record, that mashed-up name in the Global Cooling comic is John McCaslin, an astoundingly bland columnist who rattles off vaguely right-wing news, Paul Harvey-style.
All those asterisks are unhelpful, but I'll back School Vouchers work because the statement being "supported" is very vague and the fact that the citation lacks a date or author makes it 100% worthless.
WV: mange. It's like the security protocol knows that everyone here is cracking jokes about it, so it's throwing in real words.
ALL of the nominees are useless citations since they don't have enough information to let the reader verify them, but the "Barack Obama" asterisk has the added virtue of showing that Tinkley fears his caricature is unrecognizable.
I think the Barack Obama one was warranted, considering the fact that he makes up quotes for Obama all the time, and they're always things he would never, ever say in real life.
My vote goes to Global Cooling, because like the others, it doesn't give a date, a title or anything else to help you look it up, but it also has the added factor of being impossible to read.
Hmm, this is the toughest choice so far. I have to choose between the edited Obama comment attributed to Obama... or a context-free cite of a paper owned by a messianic cult leader.
Can I split my vote?
I have to vote for global cooling, since the cite can't even be read.
GDN: you make a good point about the Barackobamarisk. It's basically shorthand for:
"Everytime I quote Obama it's made-up (fecalmatter), except for this time."
One wonders where Tinkley learned how to do footnotes that are both unreadable and incomplete ... perhaps during his Reader's Digest Fellowship to Indiana University School of Journalism*
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*Wikipedia. So who knows if it's true?
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