Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for December 10, 2010

For losing fifty million? Getting called idiot is a kindness!

@Gweedo Murray, including the naughty bits.

Did the real-life impostor story break before GT started this story? If not, was he uncommonly prescient or did he luck into a great opening to write about it?

I think he’s setting the Red Rascal up to pull a REAL amazing feat

Jeff is ideally suited for a job in government.

…how many SECONDS of war do you finance with 50 millions?

That $50,000,000 would have paid for fifty US soldiers for a year in Afghanistan. On the other hand, now it will go to finance a couple thousand Taliban fighters. That’s kind of what they mean when they talk about asymmetrical conflicts.

But the real question here is: will Jeff just possibly grow up a little?

van pelt: some ceo’s going to prison. like that will ever happen. why do you think the corruption in afghanistan is going on. they have learned from the best. us. both democrats and republicans are responsible. yet in our country we do not call it corruption. we call it doing business…

TIGGER: Not OBL, but perhaps #2 AQ man! (that was the prior administrations specialty!)

Jeff’s mistakes are pretty implausible. You have to wonder why GT keeps up this Sorkh Razil fantasy. He’s deluding himself if he thinks the complexity of Afghanistan can be explained in a comic strip.

More likely, GT is playing with the Quixotic search for justice in our flawed world. Unlike Don Quixote, whom we admire for surviving his brutal encounters with real windmills, Jeff Redfern never suffers the consequences of his delusions. He just retreats into his cave of self-pity, like a child smarting from parental rebuke.

@ palin drome: If the only place he could “escape” to is an unfurnished cave in the Afghan mountains, I’d say that’s already a consequence.

Now the Drudge Report will say that Obama spent $50 million for one night in a hotel room in India. Then Malkin will report Drudge. Then Hannity, Fox Business, and Beck will report Malkin. Then Limbaugh. Then back to Drudge the next morning, and the whole echo-chain for a second day. Then the mainstream ‘press’ will report the whole thing as fact, otherwise why would Fox report it as such for two days straight?

palin, I agree that I don’t understand where GT is going with this. According to CBS News, Medicare fraud alone is $60 billion/year, or $164,383,561 a day, so Jeff’s measly $50 million loss represents less than a third what our government willfully pays out to corruption every single day. This is before Obamacare expands those numbers as it expands government control of the Medicare/Medicaid programs.

However, I see light at the end of Jeff’s tunnel, or cave, as I see him coming across Osama bin Laden out there and redeeming himself as Overkill gets credit for the arrest. Long live the Red Rascal!

Yes, there will be redemption for the Red Rascal. After all, it IS his fantasy.

Shrug Of course he’s an idiot. He took the job in the first place, reporting to a fascist, greedy, meglomaniacal career murderer masquerading as a patriot, and he actually cares what that psycho thinks of HIM.

Let’s see how long it takes him not to care. THEN he’ll grow up.

^ Find OBL? Not on your life because OBL is cutting brush in West Texas.

Losing $50M? Big deal. Howie Hubler lost $9B for his Wall Street firm and he didn’t even lose his job.

albertonencioni said, about $50 million ago: …how many SECONDS of war do you finance with 50 millions?

Assuming Doughfoot is correct, that soldiers cost about $1 million a year each, then (according to news reports saying we have about 100,000 soldiers in Afghanistan), the $50m would finance 15,768 seconds of the war, or about 4 hours 24 minutes.

Don’t think of it as a “loss”, think of it as having bought a new friend.

ooooooooooooooooh, Justice!!!! Tell it!!!!!!!!

KJ, well said. And it’s a new friend that probably has more influence in Afghan affairs than does its official government.

If the “mujahideen hideout” is in South Waziristan, Jeff may be snatched by Osama bin Laden for ransom—provided that Overkill can profit by making contact with OBL.

If (as Justice suggests) the imaginary “hideout” is really in Crawford, TX, then Sorkh Razil will have to morph into a cowboy.

Either fantasy allows us to pretend that American naivete—the stupider the better—can lead to justice, at least in comic books.

I wonder how deep his self-inception goes. It was very unlikely he would have been hired by a security agency in the first place, so this whole storyline could be a fantasy.

Out the window (fatal?) and down the stairs (???) to a Grand Revelation Cave he goes.

Perhaps Jeff is ready for a huge life change. Perhaps he will reevaluate Life The Universe and Everything and become a real son of Rick and Joanie.

OR MAYBE NOT!!!!

Palin, who would pay for someone who lost 50 million?

OBL is in Al Mukarramah (Mecca) protected by the multi-faced Saudis. How do I know that ? Easy, I’m French!

pfressor, you may be right, but don’t forget what Zonker told us on Saturday. GT’s implications and lessons are just as fictional as are the cartoon characters that illustrate them. GT apparently doesn’t want us to take them, or him, very seriously.

As to Palin (the real one, not GT’s Palin doll), it seems to me that she took a very hard look at reality when she made that decision to resign. In the real world, it paid strong dividends to her state (she was being sued to distraction), to the Tea Party, and to herself. It would be denial not to admit that it was the best course of action for all concerned… at least in the real world.

puddleglum1066 said, about 5 hours ago “Assuming Doughfoot is correct, that soldiers cost about $1 million a year each, then (according to news reports saying we have about 100,000 soldiers in Afghanistan), the $50m would finance 15,768 seconds of the war, or about 4 hours 24 minutes.”

..ammo not included, I think. Every time they shoot one of those “stupid-but-costly” weapons into the desert rocks the counter goes up 6 digits….

Alas, our poor hero…

His ship had finally come in, only to sink right underneath him after his first voyage.

Will the Red Rascal ever rise again from the depths of despair and depression?