SlowpokeBlog

GOP pointmen like the odious David Brooks spend a lot of time trying to paint mainstream progressives as out-of-touch, ivory tower elites. But if anything, that distinction goes to the so-called "neocon intellectuals" like Norman Podhoretz, the inspiration for Dr. Plonk. Podhoretz and his ilk are at the epicenter of the country's disastrous foreign policy of the past several years. In a May Wall Street Journal editorial, he says he prays with all his heart that we will bomb Iran, making the usual facile comparisons to World War II. He lionizes Bush as "a man who knows evil when he sees it" (snort) and who has been "battered more mercilessly and with less justification than any other [president] in living memory." Well. I'm not too keen on Iran getting nukes myself, but the neocons' insistence on bombing our way out of every problem has been amply demonstrated to be a bit, oh, unrealistic. And really, even Podhoretz should know this administration is certainly not the one to entrust with another military campaign.

Other tidbits about this cartoon: after making up the name "Plonk," I found out that it's an old geek term for blocking the posts of annoying users on usenet. "Plonking" someone involves adding them to your kill file. Perfect, huh?

And speaking of stopped-up toilets, "Big Fat Whale" cartoonist Brian McFadden recently did a fine strip employing them as a different metaphor of sorts.