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Monday, June 13, 2011

That damned Debate

What's Mallard raving about today?

Republican Debate, Reality TV

In fairness, Mallard, the people appearing on The Bachelorette are less bat-shit insane than those appearing in the Republican debate.

Which, I suppose, would be a reason to prefer the Republican Primary as your viewing pleasure if it were a reality TV show, except that it's far too mean-spirited towards average Americans and turns off viewers.

On an unrelated note, good luck in 2012!

13 comments:

Factinista said...

Either Tinsley assumes that some Americans believe we are governed by a monarch, or he doesn't know what a republic is.

DiR said...

Except it's not.
Debates these days are just about repeating your soundbites. Soundbites are designed to appeal to your base, and the largest % of independents as possible.
People don't watch debates because they're boring. Decideds are decided, and nons wait until the last week to decide.

Tog said...

Technically--VERY technically--"republic" is correct. A democratic republic, in fact. From Wikipedia:

"A democratic republic is a country which is both a republic and a democracy. However, in practice countries which describe themselves as democratic republics do not always hold free or fair elections. An example of this was the German Democratic Republic, a communist dictatorship commonly known as East Germany."

William P. Meyers on calling us a republic and stopping there: "On that, they are partly right, but they fail to mention that democracies and republics overlap. They are not opposites. And they fail to account for the history of American government since 1788, much less the debates that took place in America prior to 1788, when the U.S. Constitution was substituted for the Articles of Confederation."

Back to the strip: Behold Mallard's traveling nostril! And the only presidential "debates" so far have been GOP fellatio-festivals on FOXPropaganda. Talk about "wooooo...." If that's how (and where) we learn about who's going to "lead our republic," we might as well throw in the towel now.

Clell said...

- Hey wait a minute... Isn't Mallard currently unemployed?


- Does that mean he's drinking his liberal supplied unemployment check away, or is he just rolling drunks for their beers?


- Inquiring minds want to know.

Kip W said...

Clell, the strip has gotten by for so long on dog-whistle shorthand understandable to the inner core readers that it's forgotten how to say things in English. We probably missed some subtle signal — a raised eyebrow, a small bend in a penis chin — that told the initiates that Mallard has been rehired by WFDR to undercut all the stories, to sneer at management, to insult the audience, and mostly to spend time in bars or on the bean bag carrying out intensive research.

Rootbeer said...

A party primary debate is NOT a "Presidential debate".

Non-Republicans have absolutely no reason to care about tonight's battle of fearmongering soundbites, except if they take perverse joy in watching the GOP devour itself.

Steve-O said...

I may have to tune in to see what dumbass thing Herman Cain has to say. The guy's been on a roll lately.

And I still haven't figured out the "The United States is a REPUBLIC" soundbite that the GOP throw around occasionally. Why is that important to them?

Factinista said...

@Steve-O

They confuse the term "republic" with "representative democracy" and "democracy" with "direct democracy." Hence they believe the two terms are opposites.

Steve-O said...

Is it because they are REPUBLICans? That seems very stupid and immature, so OF COURSE that's why they do it!

Kaitlyn said...

So he can have a comic line up with a republican wankfest, but he can't remember when veteran's day is?

rewinn said...

No-one on The Batchelorette wants to kill Medicare, which makes it much more relevant to who will lead our nation than the "debate" Mallard's talking about.
--------------

@Steve-O - weak minded people need to believe that they have arcane knowledge that makes them smarter than smartypants educated people. The insistence that our USA is a "Republic" not a "Democracy" is an example of this magic process. If you don't agree with them, it PROVES you lack the key secret knowledge, so your other claims ("The Sky Is Blue! Global Warming Is Real!") can be ignored.

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@Kaitlin - today's conservatives love veterans the way they love Jesus: with loud, showy gestures that free them from any obligation to actually do something useful.

Tog said...

The other day, Batshit was beating his "ME NOT BIGOT! U ARE!" dead horse. Because the stoopit liberulz are always calling that confused little old lady who represents the teabaggers "racist" when she's SO clearly not. She's just a little old lady!

Media Matters: "During the opening of Fox Business' Follow the Money on Friday, Eric Bolling teased a segment about the White House hosting the president of Gabon by saying, 'Guess who's coming to dinner? A dictator. Mr. Obama shares a laugh with one of Africa's kleptocrats. It's not first time he's had a hoodlum in the hizzouse.'"

Go read the transcript. Bolling went on to gleefully encourage FOX's Sandra Smith into calling it "The White Hizzy."

That's the FOXPropaganda Channel there, Batshit. Go ahead, tell us again that racism is dead, that racism has nothing to do with your "legitimate concerns" about that Black Black Man in the White White House.

Marion Delgado said...

The US is a republican democracy and a democratic republic :)

Thomas Jefferson said mankind was divided into 2 parties - aristocrats and democrats. And he listed republicans as being democrats.

Finally, it's the same people - literally the same people, every time - who bleat about "A Republic, not a Democracy!!!" (as if we were living in Rome and you could appoint your successor as Senator) are the ones who do everything by recall (Gray Davis), ballot measures (Proposition 13 in CA), initiatives, and referendums - exactly like the Greek democracies did - bypass the representatives and have the people be the legislators.

WV: phabil Whad I godda pay even tho i'm hungover from too much "research."