Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for August 24, 2010

Jeff, your dad’s been there, done that, and still has the T-shirt hanging in his closet.

I think there is a need for a check up from the neck up.

\\//_

So, the Mel boat has long since sailed by since he probably won’t get a war profiteer job and won’t go back to Havoc. WHom will Mel meet in the future?

Rick seems rather pensive as he realizes that the journalistic ability to BS is an inherited trait.

The wisdom of the Red Rascal prevails in this case. If one doesn’t have a full resume, a legend manufactured for public consumption will have to do. How else does one explain our current executive leadership?

I’m going after the spammers next!

@Nenesys Uh… if you’re talking about the corporate culture, then the only explanation I might have is “competition.”

If you’re talking about the Chief Executive of the U.S., then I really don’t know what you mean. The voters turned down an application for V.P. by someone with a rather inflated resume.

Funny how I haven’t noticed it before now, but Jeff’s haircut looks like one of the instruments used by the barber was a bowl.

Its probably safer to hire someone with an imaginary alter ego than someone with a real alter ego.

Nemesys - uh, I dunno - the previous “executive leadership”*, maybe?

Jeff’s very identity—-and his self-esteem—depends entirely on an imaginary evil he calls “the Taliban.” His father’s comment (“What a magnificent load, son”) expresses the liberal’s non-response to evil. Evil has no real meaning for Rick, so he can only see irony in his son’s imaginary battle with an imaginary foe.

Since he’s required to dress more professional, does this mean the Red Rascal will be wearing a red necktie to work?

sandfan,

Rick is old school journalism when facts mattered and investigative journalism meant something. The character was modeled on Woodward of Woodward and Bernstein fame. The name Rick Redfern is a variation on Robert Redford, who played Woodward in “All the Presidents Men.”

Re: “the liberal’s non-response to evil”

Palindrome should have called it the liberals’ Manichaean response to evil. That’s the source of Neolib’s political outlook whereby she divides the voters into progressive sheep and reactionary goats. The sheep are on the side of light and the goats (including all Republicans) dwell in darkness.

@ Wildcard Thank goodness the country went for Joe Biden. His sharp wit and intelligent statements truly represent those who voted for him.

@Neocon

You use “Manichaean” as if it were an insult. In fact, enlightened liberals from Voltaire to Lionel Trilling have embraced Manichaeism in opposition to the Christian vision of an apocalyptic victory over evil.

Manichaeism holds that the world is swayed by two equal and opposite powers—-light (good) and darkness (evil)—-neither of which can exist without the other. History is simply the alternating dominance (but never the total destruction) of either power by the other.

We liberals are Manichaeans who look upon evil and good as relative, and who can accept the idea that we are caught up in an ongoing struggle for a better world. We find this Manichaeism far more congenial than the kinds of religious or political absolutism that want history to end in a final triumph of good over evil .

Am I getting this correctly? The ‘liberals” are the Manichaeans??

Fox News portrays “liberals” as some kind of unified political block and then demonizes them all day, every day, day-after-day …

Open-minded, intelligent people understand that the world is NOT black and white. It’s gradients of gray. That’s why the liberals have trouble maintaining a regimented talking-point echo-chamber … they think too much.

Nemesys said, about 11 hours ago

The wisdom of the Red Rascal prevails in this case. If one doesn’t have a full resume, a legend manufactured for public consumption will have to do. How else does one explain our current executive leadership?

Or do you mean the previous executive leadership?

wildcard, I think that he is referring to the bummer-man!!!

@Corzak

From the standpoint of Fox News (which I doubt you share), any attempt at mental clarity is “thinking too much.” This vulgar distrust of thinking has hurt Obama’s standing. His critics—-even the sympathetic media—-don’t understand his constant focus on policy. Obama is thinking all the time, because he (unlike his predecessor) has an attention span greater than the daily or weekly news cycles.

As for Manichaeism, liberals find it congenial because it replaces religious absolutism and moral righteousness with a dualism that makes good and evil relative and interdependent.

That good and evil depend on each other is a paradox beyond the capacity of Fox News. But Fox’s incomprehension doesn’t make this practical interdependence any less real. Everything that happens under the sun is a mixture of good and evil, no matter what Fox and Jeff Redfern and their like try to pretend.

This reminds me of the Dwight Eisenhower vs Adlai Stevenson election, where Stevenson was demonized by the conservatives as an “egghead”.