According to a story in the Indianapolis Star, Bruce Tinsley, creator of Mallard Fillmore, was arrested on the 4th of this month on for driving while intoxicated. His blood-alcohol level was .14 – twice the state level.
This is his second DUI in the last four months. The previous incident occurred on August 26th.
Ironic timing this story appeared, with today’s “Mallard” strip and all…
Agreed. The Mallard character complaining about having to spike non-alcoholic eggnog is just more egg on Tinsley’s face. Could just be a coincidence that he’s been busted more than once for drunkeness in such a short span of time. Maybe he just had some bad luck there, but I doubt it. If the man needs help, I hope he gets it. Not only would that help him live a better life, but it may help him make a better comic.
Whats that german word for enjoying anothers misery? Whatever it is, I hate to admit it, but I kind of feel it. I know it makes me a smaller, petty person, but I really really hate Mallard Fillmore.
Schadenfillmore
Ted Rall defends Bruce in his blog entry.
http://www.rall.com/2006_12_01_archive.html#116595170859171851
I agree with Ted. This is an unfortunate episode from which I hope Bruce recovers without a great deal of damage to self and family. If I have any feelings on the matter it is shame in those who find joy in the pain and embarrassment of someone else.
You’re right, of course, Alan, and I apologize for what I posted earlier. It was uncalled for and petty.
For me it’s not a matter of shadenfreude as much as the fact that people like Tinsley (and Limbaugh and all those Evangelical guys who end up in scandals) make a living by tut-tutting other people’s “bad” behavaior and holding all of society up to a biblical moral standard.
Assumedly Tinsley has had this problem for some time and on some level he’s been aware of it. Which means all that time he’s been scolding liberals for their faults while driving around drunk, putting everyone he passes in mortal danger. This is not hte behavior of someone who has it all figured out as he declares in his strip everyday with his arrogant attitude.
If Tinsley is indeed an alcoholic I think he should get help and I hope he does get better, but then I’m a liberal softie who believes in the power of personal redemption. I doubt Tinsley would be so generous if it were Aaron MacGruder in a simlar situation.
To use the textbook of the right: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”
I’m with Dave on this one. It is true that those with the biggest case of the “how-dare-yous” generally are those who want to/already do/already have indulged in some form of the same bad behaviors they go around “how dare you-ing” about.
As for taking pleasure in the miseries of others, I would submit that Tinsley does this on a regular basis, and deserves no immunity from it himself. The fact that he slams Ted Kennedy for the very problem he himself (allegedly) has, strikes me as hypocrisy of the highest order. So, am I joyful that Tinsley may (MAY) have a problem with alcohol? No. I can’t laugh at that because I’ve seen first-hand how alcoholism can wreck people. But, am I glad that he, and the shrill “how-dare-you” content of his comic, may be shown up as a refigerator-sized box of industrial-strength hypocricy? Yes. That I can delight in, and with no apology.
Anyway, like I said, maybe Tinsley just had bad luck. Maybe he doesn’t have a drinking problem, and it’s people who hate him making a mountain out of a molehill just to run him down. But even so, one thing is certain… if you’re going to have a case of the “how-dare-yous,” then you’d better be sure to walk the straight and narrow at all times. Tinsley hasn’t.
Here’s a follow up article on Tinsley’s arrest. Includes a quote from Ted Rall (from the blog post he wrote)
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/departments/syndicates/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003520927
Sounds mostly like a few of you just don’t like conservatives or their politics and are finding joy in watching one wrestle with a personal devil. Hypocracy is not a conservative condition. It’s ample on both sides of the aisle.
It would probably help if tinsley didn’t cry “The police are out to get me”….as in this article:
http://www.therepublic.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=111&ArticleID=105190&TM=51972.59
He really ought to take a page from the Hollywood crowd when they get caught with a DUI – apologize profusely, announce you’re going into rehab and actually go there. If a few of our A-list precious celebrities can get that through their head, why can’t Bruce?
Perhaps this has not (yet) occured to Tinsley because we cartoonists are more isolated that actors or politicians. They face the instant media, and have to put on more of a public show of contrition. Still, blaming the whole thing on the police is a classic PR gaffe I wish Tinsley hadn’t committed.
You know, Alan, I’m almost sure without checking that Tinsley probably has a strip about that in MF somewhere. I don’t have the time or stomach to look through any archives for it though.
Perhaps he’ll have to go to an alcohol rehab class or something by a judge’s ruling. He probably should have taken a page from my book….I usually don’t drink unless I’m home, and if I’m going out to drink further than a 15 minute walk from home I’ll take a cab.
Mallard is the only consistant voice for sanity in the media. Tinsley’s cartoon in the Pasadena Star News on April 19, 07 portended of a problem by the caption “Turned Down for part in New Yorker.” I hoped it wasn’t related to his stance on Global Warming – P…..g Off the Greenies?
I wish Bruce WELL – sometimes life ‘sucks’!
Guido
When he targets politicians, the media or the hollywood elists crowd, it’s because they have clout and influence that the everyday person like me does not have and always use it in a negative way. He calls them on their bs, lies and agenda’s and makes the serious reader stop and think about all the spin, hype and out right stupities of some of these world famous ‘know nothings’that speak about this country. He points to the reality of the damage they do to America and many of their treasonist activities.
FYI:Bruce isn’t running the country or trying to get your vote. He is just a wonderful cartoonist, that’s all.
Yeah, he has problems just like everyone else, and maybe even gets a little paranoid about the police…but don’t hang the guy over being human.
Thank goodness for Bruce and his cartoons and people like him.
Here’s to you Bruce and I love Mallard!!
Getting a DUI doesnt mean you have a problem, but it COULD be a pre-cursor to a problem.
It DOES mean that Mr. Tinsley should poor judgement in getting behind the wheel and risking the lives of others and perhaps leaving his family without him…….
I lived in Palm Beach county Florida for 11 years and I will be the first to tell you that after once being pulled over for a suspected DUI I was targeted by police hoping to catch me again…..there’s gold in them thar hills, my friends, for precincts and the officers that is….
Celebrities are people too.
Their intellectual conviction has nothing to do with the emotional.
To Dave commentor #8: By your prescription, no one should ever stand for any principles. Those who are imperfect about doing what they know is right, are human. That doesn’t mean the standards they espouse are any less correct or beneficial. A few folks are shallow, sad hypocrites; most are just imperfect strugglers who occasionally fail. Dave, the model for this evangelical, conservative softie is not those ready to throw stones, but Christ, who rightly called the woman to account for her sin, forgave her, and asked her to sin no more. Who do you look like in the case of Mr. Tinsley?
Bruce Tinsley: Don’t know if you read these comments, but regarding your strip of 1 May,’12, I suggst reading http//www.com/dpp/news/localnews/tyrone-woodfork-charged-in-home-invasion-elderly-murder Appears a 20-yr. old “man” broke ino an elderly couples home, raped the wife and killed her while her husband is still recovering from the beating he got from Tyrone. Tyrone is black, and the victims, the man was 90, his dead wife was 85, and the ‘perp’ was 20. SORRY THIS WASN’T POLITICALLY CORRECT.
He recently published a cartoon where he said that Hillary had laughed when defending a rapist when she knew he was guilty.
Two points:
1. Unless he is a mind reader, he has no idea whether Hillary knew the guy was guilty. A good lawyer will not care, anyway.
2. It is a lawyer’s job to defend their client. That is an American tradition that goes back to John Adams defending some of the British troops involved in the Boston Massacre.
Perhaps Tinsley will luck out and get a lawyer as dedicated to his defense and Hillary and Adams were to defending their clients.