I don’t know, either, and no, that line doesn’t help.

I googled and came up with RNC chairman Michael Steele — I’ve certainly never heard of him before.

Should I have known the name and catch-phrase of the chairman of some political party? I will be very impressed if anyone here can, from memory, say the name of the chair of any other political party and a phrase he/she is most famous for saying.

Quizmaster: Is Bolling serious?

Panelist #1: Bolling is engaged in satire and lampoon, along with creating an avatar of Nate who acts as a symbol for a host of political figures we might identify with him.

Quizmaster: 15 points, panelist #1! Panelist #3, what’s the definition of satire?

Panelist #3: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satire

Quizmaster: That’s a shortcut, but the judges say we can take it, 10 points! Now, Panelist #2, does a cartoon represent literal reality with no shading of meaning or analogy?

Panelist #2: Yes?

Audience: HE’S THE ENGINEER!

Quizmaster: That’s right! Take him away, boys. Everyone in the audience today will receive a year’s supply of Kitty Bits and Doggy Bits. Thanks for playing!

In either case, you are not the intended audience for this comic.

First of all we’ve got an imaginary figure getting called on some imaginary contradictory stuff he said. Presumably we’re supposed to understand that real pundits or politicians do stuff like that all the time. But if so, why not call those people directly on it? Why do you have to invent a fictional representative?

The rest of the strip takes that strategy even further. It lays out a fantasy scenario meant to reflect the mentality of people like (the imaginary) Nate. Again, if “people like Nate” are so bad, why not call out the actual fucked up stuff they do? I’m sure conservative politicians are responsible for much more heinous stuff than burning down a house anyway.

The strip reflects a general tendency among pundits to paint their opponents with extremely broad strokes – to create a caricature of “those kind of people” and then argue against that, rather than reality. This is intellectual lazy at best, disingenuous at worst.

“I never said there wouldn’t be an oil spill. Anyway, what does the spill have to do with oil drilling?” Hysterical!

I’ll bet you can hear that exact quote from one of the AM radio hate-talkers. I hear Sean Hannity shouting down disagreeable callers over the Gulf disaster with the line, “Do you think BP intended this spill to happen?” It’s as if he thinks that absolves them from responsibility—like a drunk driver that killed someone would not be responsible because he never intended that to happen.

Think about someone like Bill Kristol. Everything he claimed about Iraq before the war turned out to be completely, utterly wrong! Everything! Yet he has never conceded even ever making the slightest error whatsoever, and continues to be a fixture on gabfest shows as if has some shred of credibility.

The Neo-cons loudly and emphatically assert that what is wrong with the world is the failure of others take responsibility. Yet, like Nate, they move from failure to failure, oblivious to the trail of destruction in their wake as a result of their own errors, not to mention the possibility that they themselves may actually be capable of making a mistake.

The creator of this comic has been making a living off of Funny and Making-a-Point for a couple of decades now. I humbly submit to the members of the jury that YOU are doing “it” wrong, if indeed you are doing it at all.

McCain Palin Rally:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EzHNApBdC4

Palin’s ‘Drill Baby Drill’ Vs. Oil Spill”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn2Tyh6b5dE&NR

Intellectual lazy, indeed!

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/01/obama-offshore-drilling-a_n_521345.html

I will not be satisfied until political cartoonists depict each and every one of the 300 million US citizens.

Yes I am a suck up but at least it’s true.

Who’s nate? Is he a real figure?

Yep.

There be another lesson in humour. This one is called irony. It has nothing to do with the element, nor the domestic chore. It is, rather, where the literal meaning of a statement is contradictory to the actual meaning.