It's been almost seven years and STILL

He's got an anti-Bill Clinton fetish. Which I suppose is part and parcel of the anti-Hillary Clinton fetish. Of course all the statements he attributes to Bill are even more applicable to the current resident of the White House.

Be a glutton for punishment: Read the strip

Because it's all about Hillary vs Obama

One of the recurring features of Mallard Fillmore is the misogyny which is barely concealed beneath the surface. In a lot of ways, Bruce Tinsley is the classic movie serial-killer: He hates women because he ain't getting any (it would explain the whole drunk driving thing too).

Let's see what's wrong today. At this point, there's not much pointing out the complete lack of scansion (although at least he does get AABBA right). But there is the standard-issue viewpoint that the dem primary is pure Barack vs. Clinton (never mind that Edwards has strong support, Clark and Gore aren't officially in (yet), and it's all a year away. Heck in November of 2003, I boldly predicted that John Kerry was going to be the first to drop out of the dem primary, an outcome which turned out to be far from the truth).

Then there's the claim that Hillary Clinton married her way to the spotlight. See, there's why I brought up the misogyny. Any serious observer of politics has to recognize that in fact, Hillary's marriage was the exact opposite of that: By marrying Bill, she ended up putting her own political career on hold for decades, and while it's certainly true that without the name she wouldn't have been a serious contender in New York in 2000, it's also certainly true, that without the marriage, she wouldn't have needed the name because she would have had a long serious political career of her own. She's far from my first choice in the dem primary, but she sure ain't the K-Fed of politics.

Be a glutton for punishment: Read the strip

Wrong in so many ways

Of course there's the formal things: Like something that I suppose is maybe a really weak attempt at a limerick, although usually Bruce at least gets the rhyme scheme and here we have something like ?ABBA.

Or "Mallentine" which I suppose is supposed to be Mallard+Valentine and rhyme with Valentine, but the double-L makes it seem like it's an ode to indoor retailing.

Or #23, which implies, that there are 22 more of these in the Bruce Tinsley archives.

How about the substance? Dude, nobody offers a rival a cabinet position as a consolation prize. VP maybe (unless you have Dick Cheney search the country for the best VP candidate), but not cabinet. And while I'm sure that every candidate would like every other candidate to drop out, this sort of deal-making just doesn't happen.

It does, I suppose, give Bruce a chance to draw a poor charicature of Hillary.

Be a glutton for punishment: Read the strip

When in doubt, just make things up

So today, Bruce asserts, "The media keep saying that we're 'not yet ready for an African-American president'."

We'll let the google link speak for itself.

Ok, how about not ready for an African-American president? Nope, no go there either. We've got three stories. The Chicago Defender, a black paper which quotes Sam Greenlee indirectly as stating that America is not ready for an African-American president, but who then goes on to say that Obama should run anyway (and that he would vote for him).

From the University of Nevada Las Vegas' The Rebel Yell, we have the words not appearing in a quote (direct, or indirect). Ooh, they're named The Rebel Yell. Good ol' boys, pick-up trucks and confederate flags. This should be good, right?

Some claim that the United States is not ready for an African American president, but this can be played off as simple generalizing buggery. While many still hold certain racial stereotypes as true, the number of minority candidates elected to large offices has increased by leaps and bounds in recent years.

Curses, foiled again.

We have a quote from the Daily Southtown of "Jan" who's afraid that racism will result in even further attacks on Obama along the lines of the cocaine "story" and presumably, although she doesn't mention it, the Madrassa story. I'm sure that Monday's rant will be a take-down of the Washington Times and Fox News for pushing that garbage.

The duck goes on to claim that he's never met a single person who wouldn't vote for a black candidate. And yet, one out of three Iowans are willing to say that they believe that America isn't ready for an African-American president (the numbers are even worse for women and Hispanics). Apparently Indiana is a lot more progressive than Iowa.

Oh, and since it's Saturday, let me point your attention at our current sponsor (until someone raises the bid), Neon Hearts. Not a web comic, but rather an on-line bookstore, with a unique twist: They use a simplistic method for calculating postage for shipping your order, but if your postage is less than that number, they'll give you that much as a credit on your next order. It's all used and often obscure, but there may be something you'll like there.

Update: Speaking of things the media hasn't talked about, I tried doing google news searches on "walter williams mallard" and "walter williams tinsley" to see if there was any media coverage of Bruce's efforts this week. Nothing. Not even a letter to the editor.

Be a glutton for punishment: Read the strip

There's no humor like black humor

Bruce Tinsley declares that this week, he "will threaten an African American!!" Throw in a silent panel and then the revelation that it's all a desparate cry for attention and well, it's just kind of sad, really.

Coming soon: Yelling fire in a crowded theater to get the media's attention.

Use the comments thread to predict just who he'll be threatening. My guess is Barack Obama.

Be a glutton for punishment: Read the strip

Sundays, just like the rest of the week but in color and 3x as unfunny

We get some more brilliantly unfunny commentary from the duck today. Let's see, "joke" one: Hillary Clinton is running against Barack Obama. She'll be fighting hard, but does Tinsley really believe that she'd really say something as openly racist as "America's not ready for a black president"? I'm sorry, I don't think even Pat Robertson would be that stupid.

"Joke" two: "Barack Obama" is hard to pronounce. Umm, only if you have some sort of large prosthetic appliance in your mouth (get your mind out of the gutter, I'm talking about orthodontia). Of course that puts aside the right-wing wags who say things like Barack Osama or joyfully point out that Obama's middle name is Hussein. Which is a really effective political tactic--if you're running for Junior High Class President. Personally my first choice pick for 2008 is Al Gore, but he's almost definitely not running. Obama is my second choice and I believe that he'll be the next president of the US (barring a Bush impeachment/resignation). But at least those comments are a lot funnier than what Tinsley came up with.

"Joke" three: Milton Friedman. OK, I'll admit I had to go to wikipedia on this one. I've heard the name, but I'll be damned if I knew anything about what the man claimed, although I think that Michael J. Fox's character might have declared him his favorite economist back in the Family Ties days. Skimming over wikipedia, it seems that he's a big-time laissez faire guy. Fair enough, there's a lot to be said for that, although I think there are limits and so, apparently did Friedman. I think though that I'd draw the line a lot farther back than Friedman would, and his support of school vouchers is a classic example of that sort of ideological blindness. When anyone actually starts looking at how vouchers work in practice, flaws become grossly apparent. What people forget is that the purpose of public education is to make sure that we have an educated population to avoid gross failures in the democratic principle.