Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
And it's not Sally Kern this time:
Oklahoma County, Oklahoma Commissioner Brent Rinehart is facing a tough reelection campaign. He's been accused of abusing his office for personal gain, and will go on trial in the fall on felony campaign finance charges. But apparently, this is all a conspiracy of homosexuals, liberal do gooders, and good ol' boys to force Rinehart out of office. Rinehart lays out his case in a comic book he's sending out to voters, which--you may be surprised to learn--he wroteand illustratedhimself.
The punchline: he spells pedophile two different ways, both of them wrong. Balko has pictures of some the cartoons, which rival Jack Chick tracts for stupidity.
Politics
Comments
Go Rinehart! (and take Kern with you)
Here's the full comic. Pay attention, there will be a test. (It's on page 10.)
Posted by: Abby Normal | July 22, 2008 9:38 AM
Posted by: WScott | July 22, 2008 9:48 AM
Gah, I can't get through it all... the atrocious grammar and spelling... this would fail as a 5th grade assignment on that basis alone. (the illustrations also appear to be at a 5th grade level)
Posted by: kodiak | July 22, 2008 10:01 AM
If this actually succeeds in getting him reelected I'm moving out of the state.
Posted by: Wes | July 22, 2008 10:24 AM
You gotta love the little Devil with the pitchfork saying "If I can get the kids to believe homosexuality is normal!"
The conditional clause has no object. IOW, the consequences of getting the kids to believe are not spelled out. Same as the alleged "consequences" of gay marriage. What exactly are they? Nobody will tell me.
Posted by: BaldApe | July 22, 2008 10:37 AM
Well, I will give him this: He can draw better than I can. This does not really say much for him though -- I can't draw a straight line with a ruler. Fortunately for me, I do have the ability to write a coherent sentence. I don't think I will be offering to trade skills with him.
Posted by: Chris Anderson | July 22, 2008 10:43 AM
AH HA! I KNEW The Dukes of Hazzard was pushing the Gay Agenda (tm):
"Them good 'ol boys /Never doing no harm /always in trouble with law since the day they wuz born." -DJ
Posted by: DingoJack | July 22, 2008 11:00 AM
If Satan always speaks in subordinate clauses.
Posted by: pough | July 22, 2008 11:24 AM
Ah, Brent Rinehart. I don't think he has a single ally in the Oklahoma County government anymore. It doesn't help that he is going on trial for violations of campaign finance laws. Nor does the fact that the IRS is looking into his personal business and have asked a federal judge to hold him in civil contempt for not cooperating with them.
What was interesting is that, several years ago, one of his fellow county commissioners (there are three) was Jim Roth. Roth was elected, and re-elected, as an openly gay man and was recently appointed to fill an open seat on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission.
Posted by: carlsonjok | July 22, 2008 11:40 AM
Wow, even mroberts isn't stepping up to protest this blatant violation of a bigot's "free speech" rights. This guy must really be an embarrassment.
Posted by: Raging Bee | July 22, 2008 11:46 AM
Give it time, Raging Bee. Mroberts : posts pertaining to homosexuality :: moths : street lamps.
Posted by: Sadie Morrison | July 22, 2008 12:07 PM
Mroberts : posts pertaining to homosexuality :: moths : street lamps.
It's probably that level of thought for him: "Must go toward light...OWW, it's hot!...Must go toward light...OWW, it's hot!..."
Posted by: Raging Bee | July 22, 2008 12:14 PM
Oh. The video on CNN of him being interviewed is gold. He's grade a idiot. Count how many times he says homosexual agenda.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 22, 2008 12:41 PM
Well I'll be damned, god is on their side!
Posted by: ed | July 22, 2008 1:39 PM
I'm fascinated by people who spell the same word two different ways in the same piece of writing. Assuming it's not a typo (which it clearly isn't in this case), don't they know at least one of them is wrong? Are they hedging their bets because they're too lazy to check a dictionary, figuring that 50% isn't bad? Last I checked, it's still an F.
Love the voters with the oversize thumbs...looks like someone's been reading "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues."
Posted by: Gretchen | July 22, 2008 2:42 PM
This isn't funny guys! What if the republicans resorted to this tactic? What if the GOP put out a comic book supposedly written by Obama that made him look like an idiot? The democrat(s) who put this out to discredit Rinehart should be ashamed.
Posted by: B8ovin | July 22, 2008 3:26 PM
I do that all the time. I've even been known to spell the same word three or four different ways, all incorrect, all in the same paragraph. All I can say is, thank-you Dan Quayle for inventing Spell-Checker.
Posted by: Abby Normal | July 22, 2008 3:41 PM
Peter Pan is gay! (at least in the comic, though head not shown, but the bottom part of his shirt with them tights)
Posted by: daenku32 | July 22, 2008 4:06 PM
What's the deal with the mother and "son" menaced by the devil? The son is incredibly creepy. He looks like a very small misshapen 60 year old man, and with his arms outstretched he looks like he's trying to escape from the relatively huge woman holding him back.
Maybe Rinehart has issues with women too?
Posted by: Tyler | July 22, 2008 4:11 PM
Not to mention our narrator looks like a demented cross between the Joker and the Stage Manager from Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town."
Just....just creepy.
Posted by: Tyler | July 22, 2008 4:16 PM
DingoJack...
Being able to quote anything from the "Dukes of Hazzard" is just plain, uh, wrong...
Oh, but that Daisy!
Posted by: BobbyEarle | July 22, 2008 5:21 PM
Tyler, I'd say that's a good bet - (him having 'issues' with women).
Anybody want to lay odds that within 5 years, Reinhart is exposed going all 'Brokeback' with one of his business partners, a drug dealer, or an underage male?
Given recent history, usually those who shout mostl loudly against gay rights tend to be closeted themselves...
Posted by: Blaidd Drwg | July 22, 2008 5:31 PM
"Given recent history, usually those who shout mostl loudly against gay rights tend to be closeted themselves..."
This isn't just recent history. In the early 70s I was an officer of the Gay Lib group at the University of Illinois at Chicago. We held dances on campus about once a month for several years. At that time there was nowhere else that gay and lesbian youth could have a sense of community. Our dances were always packed. For each dance we had to fill out forms and send them to the administration. We always had the paperwork done weeks before the dances but the approval procedure started slowing down. Sometimes we would not get approval until the day before the dance, which meant we didn't have time to advertise. I went to the admin building to find out what was happening. The person who handled the paperwork was someone I had seen at gay bars very often but he was still in the closet otherwise. He told me that he didn't think our group had a right to be on campus, that we were immoral, our dances were really orgies. He said this in front of his staff. I pulled him aside that our members would start looking for him in bars and would start taking pictures of him and then post them all over campus. He backed down but he would actually run out of bars if he saw one of the group members at a gay venue.
Posted by: wrpd | July 22, 2008 6:24 PM
If Satan always speaks in subordinate clauses.
Come on you guys, you knew what Satan meant. It'a comic for crying out loud. You see that all the time in comics. Good grief. :P
Posted by: 386sx | July 22, 2008 7:15 PM
No, in comics we'd see ellipses to show us the sentence is unfinished and we need to use our imaginations to...
Posted by: pough | July 22, 2008 7:32 PM
B8ovin,
I realize I'm stating the obvious, but just for clarity's sake: the Democrats didn't "put this out." Three comments ahead of yours is an interview with Rinehart where he indicates that he thought this was a good way to get the message out and stands by the comic.
I will confess I didn't stick around to listen to all of the interview because frankly... I don't care, but I think it pretty much buries the suggestion that this is a dirty trick of the Democrats.
Of course, if it was... it'd be a pretty damn impressive feat.
Posted by: Russel | July 22, 2008 10:09 PM
Wow! Just wow! He actually puked out what was in his head in the appropriate form and put it on paper. It's scary inside his head.
I wonder what people are thinking. I honestly don't know what my reaction would be if I got this thing in my mail box. I think I'd think it a prank but then he followed it up with that idiotic interview where he actually admitted ignorance quite casually. I'm flabbergasted. I can't imagine anyone now taking him seriously enough to vote for him. The Dems are happy alright and all the happier because they didn't do it.
Blaidd Drwg: Bet ya dollars to doughnuts, that it turns to be the artist of this strip. Notice that it was signed at the end, drawings by Shane somebody or other. Weirdly if he gets caught in a hotel room with Shane, that will be least strangest thing about this fiasco.
Posted by: T's Grammy | July 23, 2008 8:41 AM