Friday Free-For-All

READERS - I'm trying something a bit different today. There were several topical stories which suggested cartoons to me, but nothing that quite felt big enough to really command the page and deserve a full commentary. So here's a Friday buffet for you to pick and choose from!



This cartoon was inspired by Obama's ridiculous posturing in which he's suddenly presenting himself as the drillingest, oiliest, most pipeline-lovin' president this old country has ever seen. The quote about enough pipeline to "encircle the Earth" was too tempting for me to pass up.

Meanwhile, Barry just put on his frowny face and ordered his administration to speed up the tiny little bit of the Keystone XL pipeline which will run between Oklahoma and Texas (carrying no oil from Canada, obviously). Unfortunately, the Bamster has no authority to speed up that section of pipeline and, in fact, probably couldn't prevent it from being built if he wanted to. But he desperately wants to look like he's doing something and the MSM is happily playing along.



Already-worried conservatives got a punch in the gut this week when one of Mitt Romney's top campaign aides assured a CNN reporter that Mitt's growingly conservative stance on the primary trail wouldn't hurt him with moderates in the general election because "you hit a reset button. Everything changes. It's almost like an Etch a Sketch - you can kind of shake it up and restart all over again."

It was easy to interpret the remark as meaning that Romney can put on a good show for the conservative rubes, but once he locks up the nomination you can give him a few shakes and - voila! - the moderates will get a new picture of a RINO.

Hope n' Change is hoping that this was just a very, very, very, very poor choice of words. (Gulp!)

And one other thing: anyone who is a "moderate" these days is either not paying attention, is an idiot, or both.



With all the hubbub about gas prices, it struck me that you could easily draw a comparison to healthcare costs. Obama claimed that by giving away free healthcare to 30 million people, it would "bend the cost curve down" thanks to the government making it mandatory for everyone else to pay up or face punishment.

Using that same logic, doesn't it seem like there should be an ObamaCar service station on every corner, bending the cost curve down by giving away gas free to some people and charging others out the wazoo? It's funny how applying the "logic" behind Obamacare to something as simple as a gas station shows the absurdity of the economic arguments.

Wait, did I say "funny?" I meant tragic.

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Chicago Style

Michelle Obama dropped by the David Letterman show on Monday to explain to America that, when not vacationing or making fundraising trips, she and Barry are putting lots of time and effort into raising their two beloved daughters, "What's Her Name" and "The Other One."

Specifically, Michelle says that it's their goal to raise Sasha and Malia with South Chicago Values - because really, who doesn't think of family values when they think of South Chicago? Well okay, first they think of political corruption, gang activity, violence, riots, and crime...but then they think of family values.

Specifically, the family of Al Capone- or one of the many other Chicago families who redefined a "Sunday Drive" to mean standing on the sideboard of a speeding car while you blasted your criminal or political rivals (and honest citizens) with tommy guns. (By the way, this may also explain why Eric Holder is anxious to smuggle sideboards to Mexican drug lords).

Of course, the Obamas are starting the girls off on "Chicago Values" slowly and presumably with less bloodshed. As an example, Michelle says she instructs the girls "on how they talk to us...it's respect. And then we take away their stuff if they don't do it."

Nice.

And isn't that pretty much the same deal that the Obamas are now offering the rest of the American people - "Show us respect or we'll take away your stuff?"

But frankly, Hope n' Change isn't too worried about the Obama girls - because along with their "Chicago Style Values" they're also living lives of almost unimaginable luxury and pampering.

For instance, 13 year old Malia has been spending her spring break in Oaxaca, Mexico without parental supervision. And while we'd hate to speculate about what sort of mischief a 13-year old girl could get into in a spring break party town where Tequila flows as freely as Whitehouse lies, we're comforted by the fact that Malia's father - who has previously voiced worries about her getting knocked up "by mistake" - insisted that she take plenty of "protection" along.

Making it just a bit confusing whether she's being raised with Chicago Style values... or Georgetown University values.

"You shoulda remembered you loved your dog BEFORE you said you wouldn't eat your damn yams."
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Ink or Swim

It will come as no surprise to anyone (except, no doubt, the newspaper industry) that traditional newspapers are dying faster than scantily clad coeds in a slasher film. Which is why the Council of Economic Advisers has just awarded the newspaper business the coveted title of "America's fastest-shrinking industry" measured by actual jobs lost.

The culprit being blamed is that old devil "technology" - you know, the same evil force that Barack Obama cited when saying that ATM machines have stolen the jobs of bank tellers, kiosks at airports have taken the jobs of ticket agents, and Turbotax has eliminated the need for accountants unless you're a moron, a tax cheat or, in Timothy Geithner's case, both.

But in our opinion, the problem for many newspapers wasn't that the Internet could deliver news more quickly...it's that the Internet showed many people that they weren't really receiving "news" at all.

Instead, there was left-leaning propaganda picked up from the New York Times, the AP, Reuters, and - especially - the Whitehouse. And because many newspapers didn't want to write anything bad about Barack Obama (as they had about George Bush), they found that they didn't really have anything left to write about. It's not like they could fill many pages with the good news coming out of the Obamaconomy.

And the ugliness didn't stop with spin-heavy news stories and editorials. Even the "funny pages" stopped being funny thanks to unending diatribes from the likes of Doonesbury's Garry Trudeau, who spent this past week running a series of cartoons accusing Texas of raping women by insisting on pre-abortion ultrasounds prior to performing abortions (although oddly, Trudeau hasn't condemned the many actual rapes committed by his pals in the OWS movement).

Trudeau says he was inspired to do the cartoons because he was so deeply offended that Rush Limbaugh used the word "slut" to describe a woman...unlike Trudeau himself, who ran a series in September 2011 in which he accused Sarah Palin of being a trash-talking, racist, cheating wife and unfit mother in a push-up bra. A series so offensive that Hope n' Change can say with 100% certainty that it cost the Dallas Morning News at least one decades-long subscription. Ours.

Happily, the news about newspapers isn't all bad. The Wall Street Journal is going strong because it knows the difference between news and editorials - and presents both with a level of excellence which is worth paying for.

And smaller, localized papers are still doing well by concentrating on community interests - a good example being the South Shore Standard, a weekly newspaper which has long featured Hope n' Change Cartoons on their Opinion Page (eat your heart out, Eric Holder - I'm a Constitutionally-protected journalist!)

Still, it's sad to see traditional newspapers increasingly writing their own obituaries. But it was inevitable once they decided to stop writing about the dangers of, and damage from, this presidency.

Surprisingly, after three years it isn't the FISH that are giving off the stench.
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