A while back, WaPo brought on two new comic strips, Candorville and Prickly City -- with the stated intention of representing the liberal and conservative political points of view. Other than Doonesbury, which is located on another page during the week, these were the only openly political comic strips that I knew of. But now another has entered the fray: Today's "Get Fuzzy" breaks new, and vicious ground in attacking Democrats.
Since I'm not a regular "Get Fuzzy" reader, I have no idea whether there's been a political slant in the past. But this morning, my 7-year-old called me, over, distressed, to tell me that there was something nasty being said about the Democrats in the Sunday Funnies. And she was right.
Two characters are looking at a slug on the windowsill. Here's the dialog from the character who makes the attack:
I don't know the exact species. But it's got no spine. So it would be in Phylum Democrata....I'm applying the scientific method here! It's spineless...it's blue...it's slow-moving. Yet it leaves a layer of slime on everything it touches...I'm sorry but in my book, that's a Democrat! I suppose you could hit it with something. If it fights back, you prove it's not a Democrat. It looks sad! Why don't you tax my tuna and buy it some drugs?!
Now I'm used to right wing attacks on Democrats, but when the right wing accuses Democrats of leaving "a layer of slime on everything it touches," that's beyond my limit of endurance. After the U.S. Attorney scandal, the perjury committed by various Justice Department staff, the actual truthful testimony of Justice Department staff depicting slimy and illegal behavior, Gonzalez's attempt to pressure the ICU post-surgical Ashcroft, the criminal behavior of Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney, the current scandals about the Alaskan Republican Senator, Representative, and state senator, the exposure of lying and deceit used to rally America behind the Iraq invasion, Haliburton's incredible war profiteering, and on and on and on -- it couldn't be any clearer that the vast majority of slime, in fact, virtually all the slime (and only virtually because of Rep. Jefferson), is trailing straight from the bad end of the Republican Party slug. I guess when you're that ugly, slimy, and disgusting, your only path is to slime your opponents.