So we know President Bush the man. And what President Clinton said is absolutely true — to know the man is to like the man, because he’s comfortable in his own skin. He knows who he is. He doesn’t put on any pretenses. He takes his job seriously, but he doesn’t take himself too seriously. He is a good man.
--Barack Obama, speaking at the dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library, 04.25.13

The dedication of the George W. Bush Presidential Library this week gave the US media a chance to engage in one of its current favorite pastimes: rehabilitating the public images of thoroughly loathsome and reprehensible public figures. They’d hardly had time to catch their breath after canonizing Margaret Thatcher before it was time for their toughest challenge ever — rehabilitating George W. “The Decider” Bush. Yeah, that’s right, it’s Shark Jumping Time.

Y’know the worst thing about this wretched speech, though? He’s paraphrasing Bill Clinton, f’cripesake. Between this and the Thatcher veneration and Chelsea Clinton interviewing the GEICO Gecko, I’d say this pretty much indicates the death of the US media.

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For your further entertainment, here’s a couple of classic op-ed stinkburgers from the Washington Post from this past week. Feel their sliminess wash over you.

“George W. Bush, A Principled President”, Michael Gerson, Op-Ed Scribbler; author, Heroic Conservatism, The Washington Post, 04.25.13

“George W. Bush Is A Victim Of A Rush To Judgement”, Stephen Knott, Professor, U.S. Naval War College, The Washington Post, 04.25.13

Lately, it seems the US media have become entirely infatuated with the term “lockdown”, dropping it at every opportunity when covering breaking news such as school shootings or the recent Boston Marathon bombing, though it was once previously confined strictly to the context of prison riots.

A blogger comrade of mine, Michael Smith, puts it quite nicely in a recent post at Stop Me Before I Vote Again:

“…A whole SMSA* in ‘lockdown’ — America’s favorite word, for the last few years. Oh how we love a lockdown — more even than we used to love a parade. Lock me down, baby. Lock me down!”

Yeah, Smiff, that’s for damn’ sure; the US media sure do love ‘em some lockdown.

*Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area, for you Census Bureau geeks out there.

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It was less than 24 hours after the bombing at the Boston Marathon when our Exalted Boy Emperor swung into action, with one of his standard-issue canned statements delivered in his standard-issue pompous, dry, professorial, I-don’t-really-mean-what-I’m-saying tone.

Amidst all the usual platitudes about prayers, courage, resiliency and pulling together, this one little bit of bluster jumped out at me:

…But make no mistake, we will get to the bottom of this. And we will find out who did this; we’ll find out why they did this. Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups will feel the full weight of justice…

…which can only mean one thing: our Exalted Boy Emperor was about to head down to the situation room with a bottle of Chardonnay and a dart board.

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Time for another headline news update, with Barbie Anchorbabe. Our top story is, for some unearthly reason, anything at all but the massive oil spill in Mayflower, Arkansas which resulted from a rupture in Exxon’s tar sands oil pipeline.

The even bigger story is the way Exxon blocked media from accessing the scene, and the FAA allowing Exxon to prevent air traffic from passing over the scene. The most reprehensible part of that story is the reaction of the corporate media to Exxon’s Soviet behavior — to sheepishly shrug its shoulders, slinking away with its tail between its legs, returning to its glitzy studios to continue whining about the sequester, pimping the phony Korean war threat, and cheering itself hoarse for gay marriage (MSNBC, I’m looking at you).

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These days — especially given Obummer’s willingness to gut Social Security and Medicare to appease the Rightists — nothing sets my internal alarms clanging quite like the sound of politicians, pundits and other Washington zombies uttering the words “Bipartisanship”, “Compromise” and “Grand Bargain”, because no matter how you slice ‘em, they all translate to one thing:

We’re fucked.

With that in mind, I present this set of three parody traffic warning signs, ideal for reproduction at large sizes, mounting on quarter-inch foam core, trimming and duct-taping to traffic sign poles around your neighborhood — especially if your neighborhood happens to be Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Have at it, folks!

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Oh say, can you see
on the bridge named for Key
where the “Aqua Team” marched,
and a bunch were arrested…!

It was bone cold, rainy, sloppy, and miserable only a day before the official beginning of spring — in other words, your typical mid-March morning in DC. It was also a morning full of coordinated disobedience actions across DC marking the first day of Iraq War v2.0. Our group, nicknamed “Aqua Team”, was given the plum job of mobbing aboard a Metro to Rosslyn and taking Key Bridge early during rush hour.

Things turned out quite nicely. All the color-nicknamed groups gathered for their rallies at designated points around DC, not knowing where they were headed until it was actually time to go — a brilliant piece of strategy which greatly reduced the chances of any snitches in the crowd getting the word ahead to the cops — in our case, it was a meetup at Eastern Market, right in my backyard, then onto an Orange Line all the way across town to Rosslyn, where hilarity ensued…

So, folks… are you hungry for a little “food democracy”?

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As I recall, the actual rally site and staging area for the march was somewhere around UN Plaza-ish, but owing to the staggering hugeness of the crowds converging — reportedly in the 1.5 million neighborhood — we never quite made it to the actual rally or march, and ended up just kind of flowing with the crowd through the streets, and spending most of the day hanging around East 50th and Third Avenue.

Here’s my friend Marianne from the Washington Action Group and the “Doghouse” puppet workshop in DC, being gratuitously harassed by NYPD goons for using a bamboo stick — apparently considered a “lethal weapon” that day — to hold up her sign. She was helped out by comrades in the crowd with some spare cardboard wrapping paper rolls.

DC anarchists “representing” on Third Avenue. One of the better flag designs of the day.

Some more of our friends from DC, the ever-popular Korean drummers’ group whipping up the crowd.

Just a few weeks before, the then-director of Fatherland Security, a pug-ugly bastard named Tom Ridge (a guy who looked as if he could play a gangster in a ’40s film noir) advised the nation that their best defense against a chemical or biological attack was to — get this — seal off your doors and windows with plastic sheeting and duct tape.

I never could figure out how these people got onto the top of that Fritos truck. It was an oddly inspiring sight, though they seemed oblivious to the shouts of the crowd below to “throw us down a bag of Fritos, man!”

“What are we going to do tonight, Brain?” This had to be my number-one favorite sign of the day. One is a genius; the other’s insane.

The Radical Cheerleaders belt one out towards the end of the afternoon. About this time, a breakaway unpermitted march had forced its way onto the streets and defied the police to march to a point near our location, succeeding by the strength of sheer numbers.

After the last cartoon, I promised myself I wouldn’t do any more cartoons about the current ongoing lame-assed, phony gun-control circus. Then, after several days of brouhaha about how Obama goes skeet shooting all the time, the White House conveniently released this photo of our Boy Emperor skeet shooting which was actually taken last summer sometime — and, well… I just couldn’t resist.

Why am I not surprised that after weeks of Liberal-style yammering about gun violence and murdered children, Obummer suddenly decides to release this photo in a blatant, weak attempt to pander to the NRA clowns? Typical, really — fake left, run right: classic Obama.

The next four years can’t go by fast enough for me.

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When I saw the initial reports on the Newtown school shootings, I knew I could pretty much skip any “news” coming out after that as I’d seen the same cycle of public hair-pulling, slobbering media frenzy (including cartoonists), and wacky-assed “solutions” every time this had happened — going back to Columbine High, if not earlier.

I’d pretty much gotten to the point where I could guess almost exactly what was going to happen, and when — from the initial round of wailing, moaning and candlelight vigils. to the media putting on a circus, to El Presidente giving a variation of the usual smarmy speech about Our Murdered Children, to the cockamamie suggestions from mainstream Liberals and the NRA, to Pat Robertson saying something intensely stupid, to Liberals wasting time getting bent out of shape over whatever stupid shit Pat Robertson said, to some weasly legislative “solution” that does absolutely nothing to address the fact that American society was built on violence from the ground up… and finally to the media deciding they’ve milked it for all they can and going back to hyping other bullshit, like the next phony budget crisis.

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