Cartoon Violence Blinded Me With Science

Each week, the Comics Curmudgeon helps explain Today's Cartoons. 

Who says the Republicans are against science? That's a vicious slander. "Social Conservatives" are only against science when science comes up with results that are at variance with the things they already believe or want, and in that sense they're exactly like everybody else.

It's not their fault that they long ago settled on a set of beliefs -- abstinence-only education reduces pregnancies and STDs, fossil fuels don't hurt the environment, Earth was created in six days by a benevolent Yahweh -- that turned out to be unrealistic. Whoops! But if there's one thing all Republicans want more than anything else, it's to hold on to the White House.

In this, too, they are obviously no different from their opponents, but the GOP has traditionally gone to great lengths to get what they want in this area. In this week's cartoons, we see that they're even willing to work with the embryo-dismembering scientists that they so obviously despise.

 
 Scientific strategy: Since the only Republican president anyone remembers with any fondness these days is Ronald Reagan and he's dead, the GOP must use preserved tissue samples to produce clones of him,Boys From Brazil-style.

Assessment of experiment: Grim. The resulting cloned beings are in fact a group of shambling quasi-humans, unable to master basic campaigning skills or even in most cases speak in complete, coherent sentences.

Final outcome: The clones should be humanely destroyed and, so that the investment in their creation isn't completely lost, sold for meat. Nobody needs to know where it came from.

 
 Scientific strategy: Since Republican voters can't seem to decide on which unlikeable candidate they dislike the least, all five should be combined into some sort of multi-souled creature so as to join their awful qualities together into something not quite as bad.

Assessment of experiment: While the five were effectively merged, it was really more craft than science, as the techniques implemented involved a staple gun of the sort easily purchased at any Home Depot. Apparently adding Ron Paul was beyond the capability of the technicians, as he was fobbed off on the VP spot (see balloon at right).

Final outcome: The five-headed monstrosity was actually leading in the polls untilAndy Rooney's devastating mid-October editorial: "Have you ever noticed that horrible crimes against nature have funny-sounding names? Would you like to live in Huckafrudy, D.C.? Now 'George' or 'Bill' or 'Barry', there's a name."

 
 Scientific strategy: The moral decay everyone has warned us about has finally come to pass. After years of seeing professional athletes succeed and thrive in their chosen profession using performance-enhancing drugs, the impressionable young people running for president have decided that they too could benefit from steroids.

Assessment of experiment: While providing a burst of endurance and superhuman upper body strength -- necessary for the constant hand shaking and baby holding and check cashing -- the steroid dose also caused wild mood swings and insane, violent bouts of anger that nobody could predict or control. Fortunately, none of the campaign staffers or observers really noticed the difference.

Final outcome: Turns out America's not ready for a first lady with 19-19-19 measurements.

 
 Scientific strategy: In a desperate attempt to make a connection with a voting public increasingly ignorant of policy issues or even the general outline of candidate plans or personalities, the GOP banks on some sense of elementary geography still remaining in the feeble brain of the American voter.

Assessment of experiment: "Look," says the candidate. "I can relate to the needs of your state. Do you know why? Because I've had risky plastic surgery to alter a part of my body to look like the map of your state! Perhaps you recognize it from the state-shaped magnets your mother or grandmother had hanging on her refrigerator?"

Final outcome: For the sake of your sanity and peace of mind, donotvisualize how Rudy is going to use this tactic in his last-ditch efforts to win Florida.

 
 Scientific strategy: The candidates should all be gathered in a single place and have a giant safe dropped onto them.

Assessment of experiment: The candidates will all be crushed to death.

Final outcome: Certain killjoys have tried to claim that this wouldn't constitute "science" per se, to which I reply: DROP THE SAFE ON THEM! DROP IT! DROP IT NOW!