The No-Compromise Compromise, or, 3-D Chess finally works out

Chief Science Officer Obama's 3-D chess playing pays off -- Fascinating.

How often have we heard the following statement about President Obama: “Oh, you don’t understand–he’s playing a 3-D chess game. You couldn’t possibly follow his strategy!” If you were a progressive (or, in hushed whispered tones, a “l-i-b-e-r-a-l”), probably a lot. Why was single payer health insurance taken off the table before the negotiations even began? 3-D chess move! Why no public option? 3-D chess move! Why no investigation into the Bush era torture policies? 3-D chess move! Bank investigations? 3-D chess move! Fascinating!

An astute observer might have noticed that all these 3-D chess moves appeared to variations on the Nimzovich strategies–instead of fighting for the center of the chess board, you concede it and allow your opponent to get overconfident so you can rush in and take advantage of his over-extended supply lines! Of course, it’s hard to overextend your supply lines on an 8×8 chess board so these openings seem to have fallen into obscurity. Nonetheless, our chessplayer-in-chief appears to be devoted to showing that they can work.

The only problem was, while Spock was playing 3-D chess, the Klingons were playing poker. Ah-HAH! I take your knight! Big deal, Full House beats one of a kind! Whoopsies!

However, we’ve finally had a situation where Obama’s chess playing has finally paid off. The brouhaha about Obamacare forcing poor religious zealots from denying women the choice of contraception. Why that’s against the freedom of religions to force their moral standards on people who need not even be members of said religions. Specifically, Catholics, the largest single church in the US–who usually vote Democratic. How quickly the Republicans rushed to their defense! I wonder how quickly they’d rush to the defense of Muslims objecting to universal health care based on Shariah law?

So Obama compromised. The church run hospitals would not have to provide contraception coverage. The health care companies would do it instead. GREET! Oops, many Catholic hospitals are self-insured! Too bad!

Mitch McConnell is furious and threatens a vote … on something. Problem is–the Catholic BISHOPS are against the idea, but Catholic women seem to applaud it. Oh, well. It gets interesting, don’t it?

On personal notes: I will be running an artists alley table at Katsucon at the Gaylord at National Harbor Friday through Sunday this coming weekend. And being as it’s a Monday holiday, there will be no cartoon until the next week. My dental problem is in the middle of recovery (I needed an extraction and implant) and it’s good not to feel the pain that has been with me for many months now. And finally, there is a very sweet kitty cat who is very ill and needs your best wishes. Thanks 🙂

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Weinergate, Schmeinergate, Why Does Anyone Take Andrew Breitbart Seriously? [Updated]

cartoon of Anthony's Wiener stand. The 50th time I was asked today.

The Weiner-Wiener jokes go on longer and longer and never seem to come to a climax.

UPDATE: Well well well, looks like Andy BB actually got one right. One out of four is a good record–for HIM. A shame about Weiner’s taste in underwear, though. Should he resign? I don’t know, last time I looked, stupidity wasn’t illegal, and we just finished 8 years of a stupid President to prove it. Immoral? That’s between him and his wife–and the voters of his district. Anyone remember the old saw about being a liberal or a conservative? If a liberal makes a mistake and does something bad, everyone says, “See, the hero has feet of clay.” But if a conservative makes a mistake and does something GOOD, everyone says, “Hey, he wasn’t such a bastard after all!”

I STILL say it’s meant to distract us from the DEATH VOUCHERS, though.

ORIGINAL POST:
You all know what happened. For the benefit of search engines, Andrew Breitbart got a tip about a photo some college girl received ostensibly from a tweet by Anthony Weiner, congressman from New York. Actually, I’m not sure WHAT happened–the story, which I tried to get straight before writing this–has gone through several convolutions, none of which really make any sense. I mean, if he mailed it to the girl, why was the Twitter feed so important? I mean, did he tweet that picture? Or did someone tweet it to him? If he tweeted it, why did only one person of his 180 some followers get the picture? Did he Twitpic the pic? or was it a link to a pic already on the web? If it was already on the web, was it really Weiner’s wiener to begin with? And why doesn’t Anthony Weiner know if that’s his underwear? Is his taste in underwear THAT GQ?

I guess it makes sense to someone. Andrew Breitbart. You know, the guy who uploaded the severely edited video of Shirley Sherrod that made her sound like an anti-white bigot, when she was telling a story about how some farmer’s case PREVENTED her from being an anti-white bigot. The same Andrew Breitbart that web-published James O’Keefe’s creatively edited video of his interviews in ACORN offices, where he inserted clips of himself and Hannah Giles dressed as pimp and prostitute (or is that prostitute and prostitute?) supposedly getting help from ACORN hiding their income from the IRS and their activities from other agencies. You know, the James O’Keefe who was busted trying to surreptitiously sneak a microphone into Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu’s office?

Why does anyone take Breitbart seriously? Everyone already knows that he won’t question a source as long as it makes Democrats or liberals look bad. See? I didn’t call him a sneaking liar! I wouldn’t say that about him because the news media has guaranteed that he doesn’t and will not ever sneak. Stinking maybe, but not sneaking! It must be the silly season already–anything to keep our minds off the DEATH VOUCHERS that Paul Ryan is trying to replace Medicare with. That’s right Democrats, be creative for a change! The Republicans renamed your end-of-life counseling sessions to DEATH PANELS. Call this “modification” to Medicare DEATH VOUCHERS. OK, maybe someone will say, copycat, copycat, but at least they’ll be focused on it.

Anyway, I no longer want to hear about Weiner’s weiner. Let this come to a climax already. I know it’s a slow season for news and reporters are hard up for copy. But Anthony Weiner has always been a standup guy. I mean, it’s not like the story’s going to come to a head and explode in anyone’s face. Nobody was playing hide the salami.

Although the salami does look kind of hidden. (Ahem!) 😀

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Stop the Presses, Census Worker Murdered–TWO WEEKS AGO???

OK, I can see how local law enforcement might think the death of Bill Sparkman could be a suicide. After all, with what Michele Bachmann and other wingnuts have been saying about the census, poor Bill could have been so depressed at the thought that he was contributing to the downfall of Western Democracy, Christianity and all that we hold dear so that Kenya could dominate the world in something other than Olympic running, that he scrawled FED on his own chest and hanged himself. That’s one theory. Another theory, just possibly a little more probable, is that Bill was mistaken for a revenooer or a DEA agent or just saw the wrong thing and was eliminated as a witness–with FED scrawled over his chest to alert the FBI that a gang of drug and/or illegal whisky purveyors were hiding out in this vicinity…they obviously wanted the publicity. Or it could have been a result of all the spew from the right wing at how the census will turn these United Statesl into a socialist worker’s paradise, aided by the pimp=and-prostitute loving, false voter registering ACORN. Maybe Glenn Beck even thinks this is crazy stuff, but they don’t think that over on CLEAR CHANNEL where they are advising people not to fill out the census–thus ensuring that their state will not get the representation that its population will deserve.
What gets to me is that with all this talk about the census in the news, the Associated Press really jumped on this story…and buried it for 10 days! Granted that since the days of Ronny Raygun, AP has been drifting starboard (and it’s fascinating to watch how individual stories become more “balanced” as different levels of editors get their hands on an issue to the point where in a recent story birther protests were equated with protests against torture at Abu Ghraib), but what did they think suppressing a story like this was going to achieve? Were they hoping that they could release it at a time when no one would notice? Myself, I’m of the opinion that it took 10 days to find out whether or not Michele Bachmann had an alibi for the date in question–they have such a great research department! But I’d better quit talking about this if I don’t want to get slapped with a plagiarism charge and get sued for violation of copyright because it IS an AP story–and their legal department’s position is that you cannot even CITE an AP story without stepping over the borders of their vast intellectual property domain.
Nancy Pelosi recently invoked the ridicule of the right by suggesting that America was at risk from politics erupting into violence, with House Minority Whip Eric Cantor returning his own opinion that Speaker Pelosi was living in another world. Nancy was either prescient (if she had to wait for the AP story to appear) or better-informed than Cantor who is living in a bubble of mythical America where assassinations, lynchings and mob violence only happen–to someone else. But even POLITICO has discovered that there might be reason to be worried–at least in the opinion of several former CIA, FBI and Secret Service officers. Myself, I HOPE this terrible crime was the fault of drug or alcohol miscreants. But seriously–I have me doubts. Even Bachmann evidently has her doubts, considering the way she cut a reporter who asked for her comment. Michele should realize that those who play with guns sometimes get shot–in their own foot by their own finger. In the meantime, being a census worker has been declared a hazardous occupation and is grounds for cancellation of your health insurance policy. Have a nice day 🙂
(My condolences to Bill Sparkman’s family–my cartoon is not meant to belittle his unfortunate death but to ridicule the competency with which it is being investigated.)