Round at Both Ends

The Partisan Report -- Why Everything Sucks NowWith the extravagantly talented Andy Cobb, I helped write this comical video.  I also live in Ohio.  It's possible I may be experiencing some self-loathing.But, y'know, consider the math here: figure how many Ohioans have already made up their minds about the election, then subtract the ones who aren't going to vote, then the ones who are going to run into a deer driving to the polling place, and in the end the leadership of this enormous country is going to be determined by a small detachment of indecisive mall-walkers in Dayton.

Reeling and Writhing

And he grinned almost from ear to ear, as he leant forwards (and as nearly as possible fell off the wall in doing so) and offered Alice his hand.She watched him a little anxiously as she took it. 'If he smiled much more, the ends of his mouth might meet behind,' she thought: 'and then I don't know what would happen to his head! I'm afraid it would come off!  Furthermore,’ she thought, 'what is up with his hair?  It does not seem to move in the least!''So here's a question for you,' he said.  'Why did it take the president 14 days before he called the act in Benghazi an act of terror?''Why, I don't believe it did,' Alice said very politely.  'Didn't he call it an act of terror in the rose garden?''Wrong!' Humpty Romney exclaimed triumphantly.  'He never said a word like it!''Didn't he?' Alice said.'You don't know what you're talking about!' cried Romney Dumpty.  'He never said it, not once!'Alice couldn't help smiling as she took out her memorandum-book, and showed him the transcript:Our country is only as strong as the character of our people and the service of those both civilian and military who represent us around the globe.  No acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for.Rompty Mitty took the book, and looked at it carefully.  'Is that what he said—' he began.'You're holding it upside down!' Alice interrupted.'To be sure I was!' Humney Dompty said gaily, as she turned it round for him.  'I thought it looked a little queer.  As I was saying, that seems to be accurate, but it doesn't change a thing.  He said "acts of terror," but he didn't mean "acts of terror."''He didn't?' said Alice.'No,' said Rumpty Mumney.  'He said "acts of terror," but he meant "spontaneous violence that involved no terrorist personnel whatsoever, and Fast and Furious and single moms and also Obamacare."''But "acts of terror" doesn't mean any of those things,' Alice objected.'Terror is an emotional state, a kind of fear, the way a person might feel about death or a mouse or financial scrutiny,' Hompty Domney continued thoughtfully.  'It isn't the same as terrorism.  Except when it is.  Like when someone from my side says it.  But when the president said it he didn't mean it the way we mean it when we say it... he meant it the other way, the way he means it when he says it.''How can you tell the difference?' Alice said with a puzzled air.'It is a most—provoking—thing,' he said, 'when a person doesn't know terror from terror!''I know it's very ignorant of me,' Alice said.  'The question is whether you can make words mean so many different things.'Rombert Romford broke into a wide grin.  'Oh, I can, my friend,' he exclaimed.  'When I make a word do a lot of work like that, I always pay it extra.  And if it fails me in any capacity, then I fire it straight away.  Hey, did I mention that I ran the Olympics?'

It's Like Soul Man

I genuinely appreciate the massively unyielding sense of confidence on display when a kid decides that her not getting admitted to a college can only be explained as the result of a vast systemic injustice.  Really.  You don’t have to embrace or defend or agree with her conviction, but you have to acknowledge, with grudging respect, the stunning enormity of its chutzpah – recognize its inherent impressiveness, like a great towering wonder of nature or feat of human endeavor, like the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey or the monuments of Petra.  It’s like the Grand Canyon, if the Grand Canyon were carved not out of stone but out of petulance and entitlement.It’s the kind of self-inflating delusion one expects from an eighteen-year-old.  That’s what being eighteen years old is for.  You look reasonably good, you sleep well, you wear silly clothes, you’re effortlessly healthy and everything in the world is about you.  When you bomb a test or don’t make the team or your would-be date turns you down for the prom or you don’t get into a college, it’s not because of you but rather because something is wrong with the universe.  It’s natural – endearing, even – that a high-schooler’s sense of self-importance would be so robust that when she fails to get admitted to the University of Texas she thinks it’s something the Supreme Court would probably want to get involved in.  Where things go off the rails a little bit, I think, is when the Supreme Court decides that she’s right about that.Abigail Fisher, whose ego-bruising slight at the hands of Texan admissions officials is at the center of the affirmative action case currently before the Court, is convinced that there were applicants who were admitted to the University of Texas who were identical to her in every respect except for the color of their skin – same scores, same grades, same activities I guess, same essays somehow, same recommendations (maybe they ran in similar circles?).  There was literally no difference between her and them apart from hue and therefore hue is the only conceivable reason she didn’t get in.  They’re like twins separated by tint.  It’s as though someone cloned her but fiddled with the contrast settings before pressing the Start button on the clone machine.  That is how uncannily alike Abigail Fisher is to these somewhat browner people who unaccountably got admitted instead of her.  It’s as though the C. Thomas Howell at the beginning of the movie Soul Man went up against the fake black C. Thomas Howell from the rest of the movie Soul Man, and the fake black C. Thomas Howell was the one who prevailed.  Abigail Fisher is the sad pale oppressed C. Thomas Howell of the American university system, and kudos to the Supreme Court for validating her adorably outsized sense of adolescent grievance.On the Court’s docket for the next session: Jessica v. Jerkos, testing the Constitutionality of the individual prerogative to designate one’s parents as categorically not the boss of one.

Hijinks

 A brief documentary:

NARRATOR

Remember that time Mitt and his buddies held down a school chum and cut off his hair?

ROMNEY

I participated in a lot of hijinks and pranks in high school.  Might've gone a little too far once in a while, but hey.  It was all in fun.  We were all just having fun.  Some of us it was more the screaming-and-crying kind of fun, but.  There are lots of, uh.  Different funs.

NARRATOR

And how about that time he put his dog in a cage on the roof of his car?

ROMNEY

More hijinks.  Also monkeyshines.  I said to Seamus, I said, "Hey, fella, want a treat?  Doggie treat?  Okay, it's on the house!"  He just bounded right up on the car roof and I was like SLAM!  Gotcha!  He was all, "huh?"  You shoulda seen his face.  By the time we got to Canada it was like(stretched back face)Classic Seamus.  He was like, "Ya got me, Mitt.  Good one."  Or he woulda been like that.  If he talked.  Crazy times.  In retrospect, the "on the house" thing woulda been funnier if the cage had been on the roof of the house instead of the car.  That part I'd do over, probably.  It's a process, hijinks are a process.  You're always learning.

NARRATOR

And Romney's time with Bain Capital?  Just one nutty prank after another.

ROMNEY

Shenanigans.  Nonstop shenanigans and tomfoolery.  We'd go in and be like "Hey, GS Industries, what's up, we're gonna buy you and fix you up, we'll all make lots of money" and they'd be like "Sure!" -- priceless -- then after it was all over and we had all the money and they'd fired like a thousand people and were in bankruptcy court they'd look around and be like "Waaaaaait a second... you guys!!"  Oh!  Oh!  Hysterical.  Gimme a second, it's just -- ah!

NARRATOR

Moreover...

ROMNEY

Wait wait.  And remember Ampad?  That was total horseplay and canootenizing.  We shut down that plant in Indiana, made a couple million, and the workers get there in the morning -- they're holding their, their, their, their, their, their little lunchboxes -- and they're like "Hold on!"  "What the--?"  "Romney!"  They're like "Got us again, we're gonna get you for this, Willard!"  Oo hoo hoo.  Escapades and skylarking.  It's too much.

NARRATOR

But this is just one facet of --

ROMNEY

Oh oh oh!  And did you see the debate?  The debate last week with the president?  At the very last minute, like seconds before I went on stage, I thought: “What if I pretend to be the exact opposite of the guy I’ve been for the past eight months? Different plans, different beliefs, total opposite day?”  And so -- I did it.  Just -- because!  I’m crazy like that.  Obama was like “Whaaaaat’s going on here...?”(whispering:)Dude. I punked the president.  What what!(dissolves into giggles.)

I'm as Big as a Bird, Now

Thanks to last night's debate, Big Bird is at the center of the national political conversation.  But he's been there before.  Here's a Halloween-themed comic strip I published about five presidential campaigns ago.