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« I pray that angels come down from heaven and heal these polls | Main | Sally Kern's mouth motors on »
We're only stupid if we're fooled
Category: Humor • Politics
Posted on: October 6, 2008 6:29 AM, by PZ Myers
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Comments
Posted by: varlo | October 6, 2008 6:37 AM
Sadly 25% or so *are* that stupid (and not just in this year's election). "My daddy voted for the Crooks and Thieves Party and so will I."
Posted by: Kel | October 6, 2008 6:37 AM
It's funny because they're going to win, calling Obama an unpatriotic terrorist all the way to the white house.
Posted by: Pikemann Urge | October 6, 2008 6:40 AM
Why go for the same kind of different when you can go for a different kind of same?
Posted by: InTheImageOfDNA | October 6, 2008 6:41 AM
Palin said so and she's a country gal so we can trust her!
Posted by: SoMG | October 6, 2008 6:55 AM
She didn't just say "nucular", she also said "infastructure" twice.
No way I can vote for this.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | October 6, 2008 7:07 AM
Kel,
I don't think so. A lot of Americans have had a hard smack round the head from reality these last few weeks, and the result has been a clear poll lead for Obama. Yes of course he's getting money from the usual wunch of bankers, Scott from Oregon, before you come in with your oh-so-superior brand of idiocy, but at least he gives the impression of having a fully functioning brain, unlike McSenile and Ms Golly-Gee-Wilikins. Obama/Biden or McCain/Palin, as everyone knows, is the effective choice for President, and enough people will recognise the difference to give Obama a clear victory, absent cheating on an unprecedented scale, or a video of Obama smoking crack with Osama bin Laden. Poll results following the "debates" show clearly that this time, the "war hero" and "hockey mom" schtick just isn't working.
Posted by: Kel | October 6, 2008 7:13 AM
I like your optimism Nick, I wish I shared it.
Posted by: chuko | October 6, 2008 7:17 AM
Today, Monday the 6th, is the last date to register in a bunch of states, including mine, TN. Obama's site has a neat tool that fills out the registration form in pdf, all pretty and typed. www.voteforchange.com
538 is projecting an 87.4% chance now that Obama will win. Of course, they're also projecting a 97% chance that McCain will win in TN, but that isn't going to keep me from voting against him.
Posted by: Cannabinaceae | October 6, 2008 7:26 AM
Alas, even if they lose the vote but steal the election, even if they get caught red-handed cheating with their Republican Voting Machines, even if they trick oppressed minorities into voting on wednesday instead with their lying flyers, the Thug Party will still get away with it.
Posted by: Dahan | October 6, 2008 7:29 AM
Kinda OT, but my Obama yard sign has been stolen twice in the last week or so. Every time that happens, I've either donated more money or signed up to volunteer (driving others to the polls on election day). I wonder what these peole think they accomplish by stealing a sign. Probably not what I'm doing. Gonna be an expensive month if they keep it up though.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | October 6, 2008 8:00 AM
Kel@7,
As far as the election is concerned, the word to remember is "salience".
As far as after the election (assuming I'm right), it's a very qualified optimism. Obama will move no further left than circumstances force him - but I think that will be quite far: withdrawal from Iraq, probably from Afghanistan, slashing military spending, and imposing some real regulation on the financial sector and medical insurance. The really important issue, climate change, will be put on the back burner.
Posted by: Shane Killian | October 6, 2008 8:13 AM
Um, you people who are looking at this and think it means you should vote Obama are SERIOUSLY missing the point! Democrat is an incumbent party, too!
Posted by: Elf Eye | October 6, 2008 8:38 AM
Dahan, we have the same problem here in southwestern Virginia. I keep my signs inside my chain link fence, positioning them far enough back so that someone leaning over the fence would be unable to reach them. Also, I figure my dogs would run up and bark at anyone who tried to get at them. The signs are still perfectly visible from the road, but it irks me that anyone would interfere with my right to express myself.
Posted by: JBlilie | October 6, 2008 8:42 AM
Once again, Non Sequitur hits the nail on the head. I was glad to hear Biden hammering away at it during his debate appearance.
Posted by: Ranson | October 6, 2008 8:51 AM
@ Shane #12
You wouldn't happen to be "shanek" that used to post on the Randi forums, would you?
Posted by: Lee Picton | October 6, 2008 8:56 AM
I am reminded of a time when the husbeast and I had the choice of a crook or an idiot to fill the position of County Executive of our county in New York State. After we came out of the voting booth and compared notes, one of us had voted for the crook and the other had voted for the idiot. Ah, symmetry.
Posted by: Stephen | October 6, 2008 9:10 AM
Stop showing Non Sequitur strips. It's a shitty comic. Even if it happens to be right this time.
Posted by: ohio republican for Obama | October 6, 2008 9:43 AM
I'm a Republican from Ohio, and I'm voting for Obama based on what I've observed over the past few months. I know many others like me who are doing the same. Everything I observe here gives me the strong impression that McCain is in a downward spiral. His behavior during the bailout ("I'm suspending my campaign," etc.) and his pick of a braindead flirt for VP has sealed his fate.
I also know many disgruntled Republicans who will either sit this one out, or throw their vote away on Barr or another third party candidate. I have been genuinely shocked at the number of Republicans who have made subtle comments to feel out my opinions, and then confessed to planning to vote for Obama once they find out I will do the same. Among at least some open-minded Republicans, there's a groundswell of anger at Bush and the contemporary GOP, there's clarity that McCain will just continue the ruinous ideas of the past, and there is the sense that Obama is the real deal, a once-in-a-lifetime political talent with genuine intellectual sophistication.
So be of good cheer.
Posted by: Mark Barratt | October 6, 2008 9:45 AM
Junior O'Daniel: We could hire our own midget, even shorter than his.
Pappy O'Daniel: Wouldn't we look like a bunch of Johnny-come-latelies, bragging on our own midget, doesn't matter how stumpy.
Posted by: Pablo | October 6, 2008 10:01 AM
You know, Mark, I'e been bringing up Pappy ODaniel quite a bit lately, too. The whole, "Maybe we could run one of them reform tickets, too, Pappy?" and Pappy says, "You can't run on a reform ticket when you are the incumbent, you idiot!!!"
Posted by: bumblebrain | October 6, 2008 10:53 AM
Dahan said:
On a similar-but-scarier note, Canada is also having an election and people with yard signs supporting liberal candidates have been having their brake lines cut:
http://www.thestar.com/federalelection/article/512317
Posted by: Scott from Oregon | October 6, 2008 11:00 AM
Obama is obviously the superior choice to McCain and the Republican party.
The fact that he is bi-racial tickles me pink. The fact that he can string a thought together is comforting.
After those two thoughts, of course, is the plain ugly truth. Professional politician with nothing but standard big government fare, beholden to special interests and the economic sector he just handed your children's money to, no real insight into America's social/economic circumstances (at least none he is brave enough to articulate), and a slate of programs designed to further Washington's interference into your life with gross, arrogant assumptions that he knows what is best for me and my community.
I see a Fannie and Freddie presidency on the horizon...
Weeeeeee...
Posted by: raven | October 6, 2008 11:04 AM
Americans are getting smacked in the head for the nth time again. The Dow is below 10K, down 500 and the NASDAQ is below 2K down 108. 60% of US households have pension or other money in the markets. This is real, tangible pain for many.
Many economists think the recession has just started. And will get much worse.
The Theothuglicans have wrecked the country for sure. Piles of dead bodies in a pointless war, dead dollar, dead economy. McBush and crazy mom Palin have nothing to offer anyone except confusion and christofascist theology.
We tried electing a moron to run the country and it didn't work. No reason to repeat a losing strategy.
Posted by: John Knight | October 6, 2008 11:07 AM
Obama is a tool of the corrupt Daley Machine in Chicago and a life-long enemy of political reform back home.
Obama is a close ally of home-grown bomb-planting terrorist & radical Bill Ayers.
Obama is a leading recipient of campaign donations from Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, originators of the mortgage crisis.
Obama is loved by terrorists around the world.
But, hey, anything is better than a "war hero" and a moose-hunting hockey mom, right?
???
Posted by: Scott from Oregon | October 6, 2008 11:11 AM
This comes from Fox so it has its obvious dingleberries, but the implications and ramifications are the stuff of a good novel. Imagine, a gay relationship causing the destruction of an economic system? Chaos theory and that butterfly Frank...
By Bill Sammon
ADVERTISEMENT
WASHINGTON --
Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank's efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.
So did Frank's partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency's push to relax lending restrictions.
Now that Fannie Mae is at the epicenter of a financial meltdown that threatens the U.S. economy, some are raising new questions about Frank's relationship with Herb Moses, who was Fannie's assistant director for product initiatives. Moses worked at the government-sponsored enterprise from 1991 to 1998, while Frank was on the House Banking Committee, which had jurisdiction over Fannie.
Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.
"It's absolutely a conflict," said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. "He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?
"If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have - or at least what's not in the stock market - that this would be considered germane," added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. "But everybody wants to avoid it because he's gay. It's the quintessential double standard."
A top GOP House aide agreed.
"C'mon, he writes housing and banking laws and his boyfriend is a top exec at a firm that stands to gain from those laws?" the aide told FOX News. "No media ever takes note? Imagine what would happen if Frank's political affiliation was R instead of D? Imagine what the media would say if [GOP former] Chairman [Mike] Oxley's wife or [GOP presidential nominee John] McCain's wife was a top exec at Fannie for a decade while they wrote the nation's housing and banking laws."
Frank's office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Frank met Moses in 1987, the same year he became the first openly gay member of Congress.
"I am the only member of the congressional gay spouse caucus," Moses wrote in the Washington Post in 1991. "On Capitol Hill, Barney always introduces me as his lover."
The two lived together in a Washington home until they broke up in 1998, a few months after Moses ended his seven-year tenure at Fannie Mae, where he was the assistant director of product initiatives. According to National Mortgage News, Moses "helped develop many of Fannie Mae's affordable housing and home improvement lending programs."
Posted by: Noni Mausa | October 6, 2008 11:15 AM
...The fact that he is bi-racial tickles me pink. The fact that he can string a thought together is comforting...
When voting, I will generally try to vote for the "oddball" candidate, the gay person or the non-white person or the overt freethinker, on the grounds that if they have made it so far as to be nominated they are very likely to be exemplary candidates.
This principle sometimes works for female candidates too, but seems to call for a closer look, since a fair number seem to be put forward as puppet candidates.
Of course, YMMV. It doesn't always work, but is common enough for me to always give it thought.
Noni
Posted by: tsg | October 6, 2008 11:18 AM
As much as I'd love to lose this bet, I've got a dollar on McCain.
Posted by: raven | October 6, 2008 11:22 AM
You mean a confused, nearly dead old man and a stupid, ignorant christofascist troll.
One could find worse than McBush and Palin. It can always get worse. But in this case, the distance between the lesser and greater of two evils is huge.
We can't take 4 more years of Theothuglican incompetence and malevolence. They had 8 years and all we got out of it was a wrecked country.
Posted by: mothra | October 6, 2008 11:50 AM
Humor break. When I was finishing my Ph.D., I read a job notice from an upper midwest university that contained the phrase: "The incumbent will be expected to be conversant. . ." Had the words 'prospective candidate' been used, I might have applied.
Posted by: Miko | October 6, 2008 12:06 PM
The funny thing about this comic is that it will be equally true four years from now regardless of which of the major party candidates wins this year.
Posted by: Ray C. | October 6, 2008 12:31 PM
@#12: Democrat is an incumbent party, too!
There is no "Democrat Party". Begone, foul troll.
@#22: Professional politician with nothing but standard big government fare, beholden to special interests and the economic sector he just handed your children's money to
You mean like Northrup-Grunman? Boeing? Lockheed Martin? The unholy trinity of Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater? That sort of special interest is quite all right by goose-steppers like you, isn't that right?
Remember, boys and girls:
* $35 billion to send sick kids to the doctor: zOMG that's SOOOOOOCIALISM thou vile un-American traitor.
* $700 billion to bail out Wall Street screw-ups: zOMG they're too big to fail we've got to let them rob us blind.
* Unlimited funds to blow shit up in Iraq: USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!
@#25: This comes from Fox so it has its obvious dingleberries
Yuk. Begone, foul troll.
Posted by: John Knight | October 6, 2008 1:57 PM
Creepy.
Posted by: minimalist | October 6, 2008 3:07 PM
OMG and did u know that his middle name is HUSSEIN, and OBAMA sounds like OSAMA?!?!
Be afraid!!1one!
(PS, how could anyself-respecting assbrained righty numbnut list so many Obama smears and forget to mention Rezko? For shame.)
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip | October 6, 2008 4:56 PM
and forget to mention
Small brain, one assumes.
Posted by: Steve_C | October 6, 2008 5:00 PM
Yes John, you lying sack of shit. You are creepy.
Posted by: MeatballEucharist | October 6, 2008 5:59 PM
It would be nice if we had more then two parties to pick from. Perhaps so we didn't have JUST the left-puppets or right-puppets idea on how to handle this. Of course I still like the idea of complete reform by way of revolution but that's the disaffected youth talking.
A wise man once said:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXpdJLJqG9U
Posted by: Qwerty | October 6, 2008 6:13 PM
John Knight, I see you are a good GOP soldier with your fear tactics and guilt by association. It won't wash this time. The GOP has cried wolf once too often. So, go vote for the ancient soldier and his hockey mom. What exactly have either REFORMED? Nothing!
Posted by: Hap | October 6, 2008 6:49 PM
I think they've reformed the definitions of "true" and "false".
Oh, you meant something useful? In that case, I have no idea.
Posted by: Shane Killian | October 6, 2008 10:25 PM
People, Obama voted for expanding the war every chance he got. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid.
He also voted for the REAL ID Act and the 2006 Military Commissions Act with the suspension of habeas corpus in it. That alone should stop ANYONE who cares about the Constitution and civil liberties from putting their mark next to his name.
Now, go on, call me a troll, or call me a racist for DARING to speak against a black guy, or the usual resorts of the Obama cultists...
Posted by: DavidONE | October 7, 2008 1:32 PM
@John Knight:
You're suggesting the Chicago mayor is controlling Barack Obama? Utter shit. This comes from the same source that claims Obama has nefarious connections with ACORN. See http://fightthesmears.com/articles/20/acornrumor
We'll let Obama field this one: "...the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago when I was 8 years old, somehow reflects on me and my values, doesn't make much sense". http://fightthesmears.com/articles/22/AyersSmear
You're referring to *employee* contributions. When we look at donations from directors and lobbyists, it's a rather different picture - http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2008/09/10/us/politics/2008_FANNIE_GRAPHIC.html
I think you're getting confused between 'terrorists' and 'people from other countries'. They are not the same thing. http://www.iftheworldcouldvote.com/results
Almost anything is better than a flip-flopping old man with an anger management problem who has voted with Bush 90%+ of the time, and a vicious, dishonest, Jesus clapping, unqualified, scientifically illiterate bimbo. Fortunately, the alternative is an intelligent, articulate and compassionate man who has repeatedly demonstrated sound judgement (no to the Iraq war) and has a highly impressive record of achievement - http://www.democraticcentral.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1565. Along with all that he's a decent human - http://leishacamden.blogspot.com/2008/10/not-that-it-matters.html
So, what you've vomited up here is a tired, old list of dishonest smears. They've been round many times and debunked many times. You're therefore either one of the liars who peddle this shit or you're one of the credulous half-wits who willingly buy it. And the reason you need to peddle it is because you know your candidate cannot win on issues, intellect or as a decent human being.
Posted by: minimalist | October 7, 2008 3:37 PM
Can I call you misinformed and stupid instead? Obama voted NAY on the Military Commissions Act.
link
The REAL ID Act was attached as a rider (by a Republican, of course) to a necessary spending bill for war funding and tsunami relief. A common Congressional trick to get otherwise noxious bills passed: stick it on something that has to pass, and where there is little time to argue. There have been efforts since then in both houses (and by members of both parties, to be fair) to repeal or soften it, and Obama has flat-out stated his opposition to it.
Posted by: Shane Killian | October 7, 2008 10:56 PM
Obama voted against it the NEXT year, along with Hillary, to make a big point but only after they both waited around to make sure it had enough votes to pass. The initial bill that suspended habeas corpus he voted for.
Obama (and practically every other Senate member) was informed by members of DownsizeDC.org before the vote that the bill had the REAL ID Act attached as a rider. Are you REALLY saying tsunami relief couldn't have waited half an hour for him to make a motion to have it removed?
Is obfuscation and excuse-making all you have?
Posted by: Shane Killian | October 7, 2008 11:00 PM
What about Obama voting for the FISA extension? What's your excuse on that one?
Posted by: Nick Gotts | October 8, 2008 9:29 AM
Shorter John Knight@24,
Obama is black.
Posted by: minimalist | October 8, 2008 10:50 AM
Link to that vote, please. I am only aware of the one general Senate vote, on which he voted Nay.
I'm not saying it didn't happen, or that you're a liar with an IQ smaller than his shoe size, but if it happened, you should have a senate.gov link or something of similar officiality/reliability.
And hey, did Obama and HRC ever actually say they were waiting to see whether it would pass before they could safely vote against it? No? Are you a mind reader? No? It's just a product of your prejudice against them and it can't be taken as 'evidence' against Obama? Okay, glad that's settled, then.
As for REAL ID, the vote was 100-0. Either there was not a single Senator interested in removing the rider (a Senate with Russ Feingold? Lincoln Chafee? not a single one?), and debate would likely have taken much longer than "a half an hour".
Nobody wants to be the guy voting against troop funding and tsunami relief, especially just before an election year. It sucks, but that's the way it is. Life isn't black and white, so deal with it.
Is innuendo all you have?
There is no good excuse for that vote, really. See? That wasn't hard. You finally named something concrete that he actually did, you didn't pretend to read his mind, and it only took you, what, only eight or nine tries?
The excuse given by the Democrats was that the bill he voted for "included additional safeguards" (which it does), but I, Russ Feingold, the ACLU, libertarians, and anyone else with concern for civil rights know that it wasn't nearly enough. Just lipstick on a pig, to coin a phrase I heard somewhere. All the Democrats had to do was let the bill die, and you wouldn't even have had to worry about putting in extra safeguards, because the Bush administration wouldn't have had the authority to do any of the crap that it would have regulated. Argh.
Still, though, it's possible that they, and Obama, sincerely believe the bill was better than nothing. I disapprove of Obama's vote, but it's unfair to shovel most of the blame in his lap -- it was the Senate and House leadership that kept bringing the bills forward, when they could have let them die.
I've never said Obama was perfect. I do, however, think his record is, on the whole, far, far better than McCain's. Not to mention the matters of intellect, emotional balance, and philosophy. Abandoning a candidate over one vote is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Posted by: Kseniya | October 9, 2008 1:06 AM
Nick Gotts FTW.
Posted by: Kel | October 9, 2008 1:08 AM
So John Knight isn't an ignorant tool just in the D'Souza thread, he's been spreading it to other places too.
Posted by: Kseniya | October 9, 2008 1:29 AM
Obama is a close ally of home-grown bomb-planting terrorist & radical Bill Ayers.
This brand of dishonesty is simply beyond the pale. I thought Knight was merely a sophist.
Of course, Governor Dingbat is spewing it, too.
And furthermore...!
Posted by: Ichthyic | October 9, 2008 1:36 AM
and furthermore...
http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Olbermann_Palin_pallin_around_with_terrorists_1007.html
Olberman spent about 15 minutes ripping her a new one.
Posted by: Kel | October 9, 2008 1:38 AM
That rant was legendary!
Posted by: Ichthyic | October 9, 2008 1:42 AM
That rant was legendary!
I rank it as memorable in my book as Bentsen chiding Quayle.
Posted by: Shane Killian | October 9, 2008 8:08 AM
Minimalist:
I've got a lot to do, so I'm not going to waste time digging up the vote. I'll just drop that point, since we've got plenty else to discuss.
No, they didn't SAY they were waiting, but they DID wait. Why wait to make that statement? If you were going to make a statement like that, wouldn't you be sure your vote was among the first? But no, C-SPAN showed them waiting around, and not voting until there were enough Yeas to pass. Most of the Senators who voted Nay waited until then.
Now, are you REALLY saying it takes more than half an hour to say, "Move to remove this irrelevant amendment so we can consider it properly later" and vote? Your excuses in supporting your cult hero get more and more pathetic.
At least you agree about the FISA vote. Now, what about the votes for increasing the military presence in Iraq? What about his votes against free speech with the so-called "Campaign reform" bills? What about the fact that he hasn't even bothered to show up for almost a third of the votes, even before he started campaigning for President? This includes many votes on civil rights issues.
Voting for Obama just because he's better than McCain is a false dichotomy, one that has prevailed in every election for at least the last 30 years, and which has only resulted in the problems of this country getting worse and worse.
Posted by: Nick Gotts | October 9, 2008 8:33 AM
Voting for Obama just because he's better than McCain is a false dichotomy - Shane Killian
Quite. I'm sure we all agree that it would have made no difference at all if Gore had been elected in 2000.
/blinkered_idiot
Posted by: minimalist | October 9, 2008 12:21 PM
I really don't think you know what "false dichotomy" means, Shane. If anything, it's absolutists like you who are adhering to such a philosophy ("either with us on 100% of the votes or against us" seems to be your attitude).
And what Nick Gotts said, of course.
Posted by: Shane Killian | October 9, 2008 4:04 PM
Nick: No, I don't think it would have. Consider that his Iraq policy was almost identical to Bush's, the stuff in the Patriot Act etc. is all just stuff that he and Clinton tried to get passed in the name of fighting the War on Drugs, he favored the same regulations that got us into this housing mess, etc., and I have a hard time thinking of anything that would have actually been all that different. Government would still have been bigger, still have been more intrusive into our lives, and we still would have had a lot less liberty than we started with.
Posted by: Shane Killian | October 9, 2008 4:11 PM
Minimalist: a false dichotomy is pretending that there are only two choices, and that an argument against one choice is an argument for the other. That is exactly what's going on here.
"If anything, it's absolutists like you who are adhering to such a philosophy ("either with us on 100% of the votes or against us""
When did I ever say anything resembling that??? This is the desperation of the Obamatons.
In fact, it is this precise behavior that scares me so much about an Obama presidency. One of the reasons why the Bush Administration was so horrible is that the neocons just accepted everything he said without criticism. I see the same thing happening with Obama's followers, too. If you want evidence, look at the Daily Show episode a couple of days after Obama got the nomination. Jon Stewart made one of his brilliant slams against Obama, and the crowd booed so heavily they sounded like an angry mob! His expression was like a deer in the headlights--and he has never made fun of Obama since. Other humorists like Leno and Letterman have found the same thing. When you can't make fun of the President, you can't criticize the President, and when you can't criticize the President, you get tyranny.
Posted by: Kseniya | October 10, 2008 1:06 AM
So it's tyranny, then? A few Obama supporters boo Jon Stewart, and we're talking about tyranny? After eight years of Bush? WTF?
Look. There's another dynamic at work here, Shane. Those of us who are sick to death of the GOP and what it's done to our country NEED to get Obama into the White House, and anything that even ostensibly works counter to achieving that goal - including humor, unfortunately - isn't going to be met with a lot of tolerance until after the election.
So. What do you suggest? That we all write-in Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinich?
Posted by: Ichthyic | October 10, 2008 1:14 AM
No, I don't think it would have.
and thus Shane demonstrates how much he wants to win this argument, even to the point of saying REALLY, REALLY stupid shit like that.
Just that one line tells me all I need to know.
Posted by: Kel | October 10, 2008 1:32 AM
Yep, it was regulation that caused the housing mess. *roll*