CSotD: Staff Infections & Other Excuses
Skip to comments
I hit “record” and shut off the Super Bowl last night, knowing I’d wake up to a bunch of spoilers. However, as I write this, I don’t know who won because as I went through social media picking out cartoons, I saw a lot about how great Bad Bunny’s halftime show was and very little about the game. Or about Kid Rock, for that matter.
When I left, the game was a defensive struggle being waged in the trenches, which I like but which isn’t spectacular to watch. And the commercials seemed expensive but also far from spectacular. But I’m glad Bad Bunny made the most of his appearance, in part because good for him and in part, as Baron suggests, because it foiled the Elmer Fudd contingent.
Maybe someone else’s social media mix is featuring praise for Kid Rock, but it sure didn’t make a blip in mine.
One other sports note: Smith posted this before Lindsey Vonn wiped out, but I don’t think making the feel-good story of the Olympics be her courageous decision to compete on a torn ACL was a wise move, whether or not the decision to ski was wise.
I’ve never liked the way the networks decide ahead of time what the Big Story is going to be. I preferred Nadia Comăneci coming out of nowhere in 1976 so unexpectedly that announcers had to suddenly learn how to pronounce her name, and the US Women’s Volleyball team bursting onto the scene in 1984, before the network had assigned them much coverage.
You know what would have been a cool, unexpected human interest story this time? The tale of a youngster who was an alternate on the Women’s Ski Team but got to step in at the last minute and realize her lifelong Olympic dream when a superstar tore her ACL and had to withdraw.
Oh well.
Speaking of having to withdraw, another shoe dropped in Britain when PM Keir Starmer’s top aide, Morgan McSweeney, was forced to resign over the appointment of Epstein-linked Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the USA. Brookes evidently thinks maybe the poor choice should echo a bit higher up the ladder, but at least somebody fell on his sword.
When I first saw news of McSweeney’s resignation, I assumed he had some connection of his own to Epstein, but this was a case of being blamed for poor judgment at the next layer.
And as Adams says, they’d already gaffed both Mandelson and Ex-Prince Andrew over the matter, which is one helluva contrast with how it’s going over here. We’re still arguing over whether Epstein’s duly convicted chief co-conspirator deserves a puppy and special meals in her country club prison.
Venables indicates that, while it’s not so good at the moment to be king, it’s sure great to live in a nation that limits their reaction to raping young girls to a bit of tut-tutting, even if you’ve publicly bragged about it. Heck, the family-values gang hired Kid Rock to play in their squeaky-clean alternate half-time show, and he brags about taking drugs and having sex with underage girls.
But that’s okay: He sings about it in English.
But we’re on the case! Although, as Wilcox points out, in case anyone missed the story, we’ve managed to redact the names of the villains while exposing the identities of the victims.
I’ll grant you that a lot of names come up in the Epstein files for irrelevant reasons. The guy knew a lot of people and didn’t party with all of them. But the astonishing ways the Department of Justice has screwed up its review and release of the files … well, it shows what happens when you put buddies in charge of things instead of hiring competent, experienced people with sound judgment and ethics.
In case you thought the shameful parade of incompetent dabblers was confined to the Doge Boys. And Pete Hegseth. And Howard Ludnick. And Scott Bessent. And Linda McMahon. And Kristi Noem. And Brook Rollins. And so forth and so on.
He could have walked out on the street and just grabbed the first two dozen people who walked past and done as well. Perhaps better.
And while the Doge nitwits cost us more money and destroyed more lives, Wolverton is correct to ask what kind of jackass Dear Leader has managing his social media, assuming you aren’t convinced that the jackass sits at the Resolution Desk. It’s not as if Trump ever needed help in making a fool of himself.
Dear Leader can’t get his story straight. It wasn’t his fault. Some unnamed staff member posted the offensive material. Except he saw it, didn’t think it was offensive and gave it to his staff to post it.
In the middle of the night, though we haven’t seen his staff’s time cards.
As it is, Ostrove isn’t the only cartoonist to compare Dear Leader to a poo-flinging monkey, though I like the way the angry monkey objects to being accused.
Kind of makes you wonder how five-year-old Donald reacted when he was caught throwing rocks at a baby.
Jones joins a substantial group of cartoonists who depict Trump in Klan costume, which is an exaggeration but not an unfair one. If it was a staffer who posted the video showing the Obamas as apes (after Trump approved it and ordered it posted, by his own admission), there have been plenty of unsubtle racist gaffes earlier in the game.
For instance, he and his old man were formally judged to have discriminated against African-Americans in rentals, and that was only the first in a cascade of racism. Not that racism was any more of a deterrent to his MAGA faithful than, say, shooting someone in the middle of Fifth Avenue.
Though, granted, blaming his staff for that doesn’t seem quite as effective, although if you read the postings on Xitter, it isn’t exactly a game-killer, at least in the eyes of Russian bots.
Still, he was elected despite his racism and perhaps because of it. And despite Dear Leader’s fear of phony ballots, Russian bots don’t vote.
While, in 2024, a lot of ideological purists didn’t vote, either.
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
Comments 9
Comments are closed.