Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau for August 11, 2009
Transcript:
Man: Brothers, 58% of Republicans say they're not sure if Obama was born here! We ignore those numbers at our peril! Man: Hang on, brother - did Jesus ever have to produce a birth certificate to establish HIS standing? Man: No... no... not as far as we know... although that'd be a pretty impressive document, wouldn't it? Man: Assuming it wasn't a fake. The Family debates the Birther bill.
4deerinmyyard over 15 years ago
Oh, man, that *is* depressing….
jnik23260 over 15 years ago
Hey, Baslim the Beggar:
28% think he was born outside +30% don’t know = 58%. Do the math.
ventrue1 over 15 years ago
As a proud conservative (fiscal not moral) and GOP member, I’d like to say… these people are crazy and sickening. We aren’t all like that.
pbarnrob over 15 years ago
I’ve also been reading that some 50% of Americans can’t name the three branches of government, and some even higher percentage can’t name their representative nor their senators! (And of course, according to Dilbert, 87.5% of statistics are made up!)
jasonate over 15 years ago
OK Gary We got it. Republicans bad. Democrats good. This whole “brotherhood” series has been boring
CogentModality over 15 years ago
Does anybody know what the odds are of becoming the president of the United States of America?! geez!!!
About 100% in Obama’s case.
OshkoshJohn over 15 years ago
I believe Trudeau wants to keep it funny, but he’s having a VERY hard time creating political satire that’s weirder than reality.
Alabama Al over 15 years ago
“CogentModality”, show me a casino which accepts bets AFTER the dice are rolled, and your comment might have some poignancy.
ray32648 over 15 years ago
Ralph Reed could probably point out a couple to you, Al.
edcoyote over 15 years ago
Let’s say, that ignoring all logic, the entire resources of the Republican party and the Democratic Party, McCain and Clinton, were taken in by this conspiracy to put an intelligent black man in the White House.
Let’s say Obama were ousted from office.
What is it the birthers want as a result?
President Biden?
President Pelosi?
I’m just curious. I’d heard the core of the birthers were Palin supporters. How many other frauds would they have to pull off to get that to happen.
–Ed
lewisbower over 15 years ago
Edcoyote I find the thought of Biden as president rather humorous
misterwhite over 15 years ago
edcoyote wrote: ” I’d heard the core of the birthers were Palin supporters ”
And the ones who are posting around the net that since they lost at the ballot box, they were going to appeal to the “bullet box” soon.
humormehere over 15 years ago
Just remember. There will ALWAYS be people that use a philosophy or religion to excuse their behavior no matter WHAT. All sides. It’s not the political STRIPE we tend to disagree with, it’s the CHARACTER of the person.
pearlandpeach over 15 years ago
oshkoshjohn has it correct, reality is always stranger and wieder and funnier than we can think up because we don’t believe anything THAT offbeat can happen. Stephen King has it righter than even Koontz./.
MisngNOLA over 15 years ago
Is this a political cartoon? Oops, never mind.
twieliczka over 15 years ago
My question to Birther Dobbs, since you founded the website SPACE, what PLANET were YOU born on. And do they even have birth certificates on that planet?
Hmmm.
I think this should get investigated.
Nighthawks Premium Member over 15 years ago
edcoyote, well, the important thing to a lot of the birthers,in my opinion, is that the black guy is tossed out…. it is sad and depressing to know the number of people who cannot stand that ‘the america they once knew” has a “racially inferior” as it’s president ……they will never admit this….they will lift their phony, sanctimonious heads and and say no! no!, this is about the constitution …or states rights ..or whatever the latest excuse is for out and out racisim….it’s very simple: some white folks are pissed and can’t stand it and will do ANYthing to change what is…..
these folks just love their guns , too
the mere thought of the combination of anger, frustration, insanity, condoned violence and easy access to guns is too horrible to contemplate
jimpow over 15 years ago
JUst take them out back and shoot them. Problem solved.
euthuno over 15 years ago
How are Obama and God alike? Neither one have a birth certificate.
William Sutton Premium Member over 15 years ago
The really sad thing about these ignorant Birthers is that one day many of them will probably support an ammendment to allow Arnold run for POTUS.
Herbabee over 15 years ago
^ Yah. Never(sp)mind the state of affairs Cully-fornia finds itself in now~
Nemesys over 15 years ago
Arnold is too much of a political girly-man to be nominated for national office by the Republicans.
I enjoyed the Alex story, but of all the interesting actual issues for Gary to talk about (healthcare reform, Cash for Clunkers, Pelosi vs. the CIA, Obama’s Afghanistan War, etc.), why he chose this non-issue to comment on is beyond me. Nobody is taking it seriously except a few idiots, and trying to represent those people as being representative of Republicans in general is like using the antics of Al Sharpton to represent the morality of all African Americans.
As to the general opposition to Obama, our Secretary of State said it best:
“I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you’re not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration.” - Hillary Clinton
Potrzebie over 15 years ago
Since the strips are drawn two weeks in advance or so, I can’t wait to see GBT’s take on the astroturf town-hall wingnuts! Maybe by August 17th?
BlueRaven over 15 years ago
Nemesys, I think rather that Trudeau is attempting to notify people of C Street’s existence because they have been trying for some time to turn this country into a theocracy. It’s come across to me as more targeting the Dominionist mindset than the GOP in general. Hauling them out into the light of day and attempting to satirize the near-unsatirizable.
hookedoncomics over 15 years ago
Agreed, Doctortoon and Nighthawks! I wish we could all see eye to eye on more of these things, but we never will!
countoftowergrove over 15 years ago
As a matter of fact, according to Luke, Joseph and Mary were in Bethlehem to register for a census, but fled to Egypt, before the tax was paid, thus we who have doubts of the existance of Jesus can say, where’s the documentation?
3hourtour Premium Member over 15 years ago
These unholy rollers are not follwing Jesus.Jesus was all for the seperation of church and state.What else could this statement mean:”Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s,and unto God the things that are God’s”.
RinaFarina over 15 years ago
A lot of comments I want to comment on today! People have been following quite a few different lines of thought.
@pbarnrob, speaking of statistics, did you know that fully 50% of Americans have below average intelligence? When I tell people this, they get upset. Especially because I keep a straight face while I’m saying it. Figure it out! ;-)
@oshkoshjohn, as a Canadian reading Doonesbury, I would often think to myself that Trudeau had gone too far this time, really exaggerating too much to make a point. Then I would see a tiny paragraph in a corner of my newspaper (we don’t get as much American news as you do - many of the comments I see here go right over my head, like, who is Ralph Reed?), and realize that not only was Trudeau not exaggerating, he wasn’t even going as far as the story did in real life!
@jasonate, yes I have tried faithfully to follow this story about the family, but I have to say that I too find it boring. I mean, at least Duke is funny. These guys seem almost innocent, they take themselves so seriously.
@bluraven, you have the right word, they are un-satirizable.
@nemesys, the argument that if you disagree with the country’s leader you are not patriotic has probably been used over and over in every country in the world. That idea is boring too.
I just got a birth certificate from the province of Quebec. Several years ago they had passed a law saying that all the old birth certs were void, and you had to re-apply. It cost me $70 (I wanted two copies, and I think it was $35 each), plus several months of paperwork, to get my new one. We sure could use someone like Trudeau to satirize Quebec politics up here. People are mostly too stunned by them to laugh.
lindz.coop Premium Member over 15 years ago
Finding “the family” innocent is quite an interesting concept since they have been involved in buying the govt for a good long time. Good thing that Doons has chosen to enlighten a few more folks about what is going on in Washington. My guess is that the “birthers” want Palin as president – which is the saddest of all.
Ushindi over 15 years ago
Rina: I believe you should rethink (restate?) your IQ statement - there is a big difference between “Average” and “Median” in mathematics. Not saying your conclusion is incorrect, necessarily - sometimes Average and Median will coincide, but not always, depending on the values involved.
Wabac over 15 years ago
Ushindi, One of my college textbooks was “How To Lie With Statistics.” It was a small and humorous book that clearly demonstrated how any idea can be supported with the proper twist in statistics.
One of its key points was the question, “what is an average?” It contained numerous demonstrations of how mathematical average, mode, median, etc all could legitimately be called an average, It is all a matter of which value do you need to support your point.