Cagle World

Raging Moderate, by Will Durst

What is wrong with the GOP? Are they blind, reckless or just plain mean? They must see that reinforcing their stereotype as the Party Of The Rich is not a good idea. They have unanimously said “No. Hell, no” to every budget proposal floated their way, yet are willing to make an exception to give money to the rich. Rich. Rich. Rich. Rich. Rich. Rich. Rich. Curious mantra. Now. During an election year. It’s like hitting the upstairs maid with a splintered 2-by-4 while conducting interviews for a new butler. Word gets out. People talk. You hear things.

Cartoon by Nate Beeler - Washington Examiner (click to reprint)

Republican senators are responsible for blocking three attempts to extend unemployment insurance and bragging about it. And determined to continue filibustering until Democrats come up with cuts in other programs to make it budget neutral. Which makes a certain amount of sense. “You want to eat this week? Then put that video game back on the shelf mister. And don’t give me that face. I’ll give you something to cry about.”

The problem is, Republicans triple-lock their wallets only when a Democrat is in the White House. When George W. Bush was president, they used pneumatic tubes to siphon money from the mint as quickly as possible. A trillion for the Pharmaceuticals here. A couple trillion for some pre-emptive wars there. Another trillion in tax cuts for rich people. In 2002, somewhere between his third and fourth myocardial infarctions, Dick Cheney told Treasury Secretary O’Neill, “Ronald Reagan taught us deficits don’t matter.” And apparently neither do heart attacks. Does this guy even have a pulse anymore?

Because of Congress’ inaction, 375,000 American workers are losing unemployment benefits every week. Its obvious Mitch McConnell’s intent is to deny Obama any political victory while sucking up to the Tea Partiers with his newly unearthed fiscal responsibility, but he might want to remember people without jobs can read newspapers too. As a matter of fact, they often have an excess of free time to campaign and stuff envelopes and get out the vote.

It’s easy to understand why Republicans hate giving money to the poor. Poor people are icky. And they never know which fork to use. and those shoes! But most importantly, poor people seldom top any respected list of major political campaign donors. As opposed to the rich, who understand that money gets you access and access provides influence and before you know it, you’re in the back room of the Capitol Grille on your second pitcher of argaritas helping write regulations that allow lethal doses of magnesium in 2 percent milk.

So though they talk the budget-neutrality talk, they don’t walk the budget-neutrality walk. At the same time they’re wishing the jobless lots of luck fighting with dogs for food, they’re also lobbying to extend Bush’s expiring tax cuts to the rich, and budget neutrality can take a flying leap off a short pier into a crashing sea of toxic sludge.

See, tax cuts are different. That’s not welfare for the rich; that’s playing the magic note on the economic flute that calls the Trickle-Down Fairy to fly from capitalist heaven and carry us away to a nice, warm free-market bath. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a mite suspicious of the alkaline nature of this whole trickle-down thing. Good time to invest in a trickle-down umbrella. Available for one day only this November 2.

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Will Durst is a San Francisco-based political comedian who often writes. This being an example wherein he castigates the rich: a group that stubbornly refuses to include him as a member. Catch his stand-up at The Last Day Saloon in Santa Rosa, Calif., on Saturday, July 17, and The Sebastiani Theater in Sonoma, Calif., on Sunday, July 18. His new CD, “Raging Moderate,” is now available from Stand Up! Records on both iTunes and Amazon.

Copyright ©2010, Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. Call Cari Dawson-Bartley at 800-696-7561 or e-mail [email protected]. Will Durst is a political comedian who has performed around the world. He is a familiar pundit on television and radio. E-mail Will at [email protected]. Check out willandwillie.com for the latest podcast. Will Durst’s book, “The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing,” is available from Amazon and better bookstores all over this great land of ours. Don’t forget to check out his rooftop comedy minutes at: http://www.rooftopcomedy.com/shows/BurstOfDurst.

Raging Moderate by Will Durst

Now let me get this straight. The World Cup is the most exciting sporting event on the face of the planet, right? Okay, then. What’s second place — the New England Spinsters Knitting Circle Seniors Tour? Which would make Supermodels Filling In Crossword Puzzles With Leaky Ink Pens a close third. Let’s not forget those scintillating Midnight Coastal Colombian Tarantula Crawl-Offs.

My God. It’s so European. Like a Bergman Film. “Firdley passes it to Rodrigue who kicks it back to Firdley who returns it to Rodrigue, who stands still for a robust twenty seconds. Genius tactical move. They’ve really put the attack back on the full boil now. Rodrigue crosses it to Firdley near the net and he takes a shot and oh no. it bounces off the crossbar, and so, late in the second extra time, the score remains, nil, nil.”

You can’t tell who anybody is, because the only camera angle has the lens conveniently mounted on the inside rim of the Hubble Telescope. As an added attraction, every single game in South Africa has been accompanied by a hundred thousand vuvuzelas, an instrument that gives cacophony a bad name.

It’s a mouthpiece leading to a long, flaring plastic tube with a repertoire of a single, blaring droning note. From beginning to end of every single match through extra time, half-time and every time. To participants it must sound like playing inside a hornet’s nest that’s been microwaved on defrost for 20 minutes. Rumor has it the CIA is looking into possible uses for interrogations.

FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, refused to ban the vuvuzela saying it would deprive the world of the authentic South African footballing experience. Yeah. What a loss that would have been, especially considering the tradition of the vuvuzela being the unofficial football horn-like instrument of South Africa harkens all the way back to the early 21st Century in 2002.

To say the officiating has been a bit erratic is like inferring BP’s cleanup of the Gulf has been less than exhaustive. Referees have missed goals and calls like jury summonses, handing out their precious colorful cards to players whose only infraction was proximity to an opposing player who fell down for no apparent reason. Not just fell down, but dove to the ground holding their face writhing in agony like they were struck in the forehead by a heated metal coil festooned with jutting spikes. Holding their face? The hell is that? These guys would last 15 seconds in the NFL. Tops.

Grown men egregiously flopping is just one reason the sport will never catch on in the USA, no matter how many soccer moms drive minivans. Americans can’t get it up for any sport that doesn’t involve eighth of a ton, no-neck, brain-dead pieces of premium beef tearing each other apart like the last sack of powdered milk at a United Nations relief tent in Kandahar. And in soccer, that’s the fans’ job.

Part of it has to do with the lack of commercials. We don’t have the attention span. The same reason why a Royal Family wouldn’t work here. Of course, next year is the Womens’ World Cup which men WILL tune in to just on the off chance that some competitor will pull a Brandi Chastain and rip off her shirt. Next time around the guys might want to try that. Or more head butting.

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Will Durst is a San Francisco-based political comedian who often writes. This being a sporty example. Catch his stand-up at The Bolinas, Calif., Community Center on Friday July 9, The Cozmic Café in Placerville, Calif., on Saturday, July 10, and the Don Quixote Hall in Felton, Calif., on Sunday, July 11. Not to mention the LOL Film Festival at the Vogue Theater in San Francisco on Monday, July 12, and the Rio Theater later that night. His new CD, “Raging Moderate,” is now available from Stand Up! Records on both iTunes and Amazon.

Copyright ©2010, Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. Call Cari Dawson-Bartley at 800-696-7561 or e-mail [email protected]. Will Durst is a political comedian who has performed around the world. He is a familiar pundit on television and radio. E-mail Will at [email protected]. Check out willandwillie.com for the latest podcast. Will Durst’s book, “The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing,” is available from Amazon and better bookstores all over this great land of ours. Don’t forget to check out his rooftop comedy minutes at: http://www.rooftopcomedy.com/shows/BurstOfDurst.

Raging Moderate, by Will Durst

Here’s hoping your Independence Day is or was beyond terrific. Got to love the loudest and most American of all the holidays. Just one of the moments that makes a person prouder than papaya punch to be a citizen of this fine country. The greatest place on the planet, which is why we have all those darn problems with our borders. After all, you don’t see a lot of stories about the teeming humanity streaming across the border into Kazakhstan. Or Kyrgyzstan. Which many experts claim are two different countries.

Cartoon by Jeff Parker - Florida Today (click to reprint)

Although the Summer Solstice was but a few weeks ago, the Fourth of July is still dead-solid summer. It means baseball and hot dogs and picnics and suntan lotion and ice cream trucks and road trips in the back of a station wagon bouncing around like a fleshy pinball, begging Dad to turn up the air conditioning and screw the gas mileage.

Being a native of the Midwest, I am used to celebrating this noisy and sweaty occasion by intensely charring immense amounts of flesh, both mine and that of assorted animals, then drinking a cooler full of suds and shooting off firecrackers. That’s right, we drink beer and handle explosives, explaining why this is the day many nicknames like “Lefty” and “Patch” are christened.

No matter what side of the political spectrum your team plays on, this is a non-partisan party. Hippies and hawks both can be seen exercising their freedom by flipping Frisbees and firing up the grill, although it’s a lot easier to keep a rack of baby-backs from slipping through the grates than it is for bean sprouts.

Hard to think of a snapshot of the USA more iconic than a small-town Fourth of July parade with kids stringing bunting in their bicycle spokes, and streamers doing their streaming thing from the handlebars. Where tricycles and Big Wheels careen between crawling convertibles containing beauty queens waving with one hand and holding tight their tiaras with the other. Where hardware stores sponsor Uncle Sam floats, and politicians are good-naturedly booed.

Speaking of which, the Fourth of July also signals the apex of the marching-band year. This is their day to shine. Good marching bands and bad marching bands. Which admittedly is hard for the layman to tell the difference, but no whining. These poor people practice all year long and get one lousy day. Be honest, how many John Philip Sousa albums do you own?

Even as a transplant to the West Coast, my wife and I will attempt to do the red, white and blue thing so big and bad that the ghost of Patrick Henry slaps us an imaginary high-five. It’s the perfect time to forget the troubles facing this nation and concentrate on the good things. Food, family, friends and fireworks.

So get in your summer licks, people. Buy a new bathing suit. Wear white shoes. Fly a flag. Eat a roasted cob of corn and let the butter slide right down your arm and drip off your elbow. Snore in a hammock. And blow some stuff up real good. Because it won’t be long before we’re stuffing the flip-flops back in the closet and hauling out the school backpacks and pumpkin-carving kits. Happy 234th birthday, America. And I got to tell you sweetheart, in the right light, you don’t look a day over 195. Oooh. Aaaah.

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Will Durst is a San Francisco-based political comedian who often writes. This being a festive example. Catch his one-man show, “The Lieutenant Governor from the State of Confusion,” at a performing arts center near you. His new CD, “Raging Moderate” from Stand Up! Records, is now available on both iTunes and Amazon. Coming this fall: “Where the Rogue Things Go.”

Copyright ©2010, Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. Call Cari Dawson-Bartley at 800-696-7561 or e-mail [email protected]. Will Durst is a political comedian who has performed around the world. He is a familiar pundit on television and radio. E-mail Will at [email protected]. Check out willandwillie.com for the latest podcast. Will Durst’s book, “The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing,” is available from Amazon and better bookstores all over this great land of ours. Don’t forget to check out his rooftop comedy minutes at: http://www.rooftopcomedy.com/shows/BurstOfDurst.

Taking a breather from our Gulf Coast miasma in order to focus on an even ghastlier blight of cultural crude washing up on American shores. No, this is not about Lady Gaga. Although, I do intend to address walking parasites. Demon fiends. Bloodsucking vermin. The Ushers at the Gates of Hell themselves, of which we are experiencing a veritable glut, and I’m here to say that my soul is so weary of vampires. Bleh.

Cartoon by David Fitzsimmons - Arizona Star (click to reprint)

Used to be vampires were stylish and dangerous and romantic, partly due to their rarity. These days, Children of the Night sightings are as frequent as “Law & Order” reruns. More ubiquitous than Subway sandwich shops. And about as horrifying. Movies and television and magazines and commercials and straight-to-video DVDs and books and comic books and kids’ books and even Muppets. Only a matter of time before Fisher-Price comes out with a line of vampire mobiles to hang over cribs.

Bayou vampires and New York City vampires and Elvis Presley tribute artists and tiny vampires with thyroid imbalances wearing herringbone fezzes. Vampires fighting werewolves. Vampires befriending werewolves. Vampire cops and vampire legal department research assistants and vampire DPW dispatchers and vampire insurance adjusters. Admittedly, the latter smacks of redundancy.

Because of the proliferation of the walking undead to mainstream pervasiveness, these suburban mall vamps are consequently forced to raise the fantasy stakes to where the entire genre is tumbling into ridiculousness. Most frustrating is nobody plays by the rules anymore. Time-tested conventions are being discarded like blood ampoules at a neck-biters’ winter solstice mortuary retreat.

Garlic is no big deal unless it is. They can run extremely fast. Except when they can’t. Superhuman strength is at their command — sometimes. Silver, mirrors, daylight, holy water and wooden stakes: Take ’em or leave them. That’s the problem with kids today. No respect for their elders. If it was good enough for Bram Stoker, it should be good enough for these libidinous meat puppets.

You don’t have to be Freud to get the repressed sexual desires theme. But wasn’t it was a lot more interesting when society was repressed and not flaunted by young starlets emerging from limos sans underwear? And what is it with the brooding? You’re a thousand years old. How much time to do you need to adjust to the agony of immortality? Stop it with the teenage angst already.

And yes, yes, yesssssss. To be young is to identify with the alienation and the dressing all in black and the being pale and stuff. But the only thing less sexy than an ancient man caressing the carotid of a pubescent girl with his swollen incisors may be the prospect of she and he swapping denture cream. You think Anna Nicole Smith was creepy, multiply her husband’s age by eight or 10 and try imagining that. Not enough Ambien in Patrick Kennedy’s medicine cabinet to quell those nightmares. Makes Harold and Maude seem the stuff of fairy tails. Tales. That’s Tinker Bell in Vegas.

And this anguishing over the weight of the eternal hunger is getting a bit old. You’ve had multiple centuries to come up with an efficient way to feed. You’re not tormented, you’re incompetent. You know, if Hollywood is really interested in a new way to make big bucks frightening America, they should green-light a series of movies about the inner workings of Congress. Now, those soulless zombies are scary.

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Will Durst is a San Francisco-based political comic who often writes. This being a fine example. Catch his one-man show, “The Lieutenant Governor from the State of Confusion,” at a performing arts center near you. His new CD, “Raging Moderate” from Stand Up! Records, is now available on both iTunes and Amazon. Coming this fall: “Where the Rogue Things Go.”

Copyright ©2010, Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. Call Cari Dawson-Bartley at 800-696-7561 or e-mail [email protected]. Will Durst is a political comedian who has performed around the world. He is a familiar pundit on television and radio. E-mail Will at [email protected]. Check out willandwillie.com for the latest podcast. Will Durst’s book, “The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing,” is available from Amazon and better bookstores all over this great land of ours. Don’t forget to check out his rooftop comedy minutes at: http://www.rooftopcomedy.com/shows/BurstOfDurst.

Raging Moderate, by Will Durst

In an age of relentless change, it’s heartening to be able to count on a few simple things. Glenn Beck and Keith Olbermann ranting and raving one pulse short of an aneurism. Water flowing downhill. Congress holding hearings whose only point is to express the indignant depths of their public outrage even though our chances of learning anything is less likely than the North Korean Minister of Medicine going on Oprah to talk about Kim Jong Il’s spider phobia. Its all good.

Cartoon by Pat Bagley - Salt Lake Tribune (click to reprint)

The spectacle of politics as usual is as reassuring as a warm, Vaseline-lined bathrobe. It’s comforting to be reminded every now and then that no matter how urgent the crisis facing the American people, our politicians can and will find ample time to grandstand even if their self-righteous preening cancels out the eensiest possibility of actual progress. Can’t wait for them to replace the gavel at these things with a hand-held mirror.

Take the recent seven-hour theatrical farce featuring Tony Hayward. Please. Strictly following the prescribed testimony demanded of these august tribunals, British Petroleum’s CEO stuck to the script and adopted the role of a character afflicted with a severe case of selective amnesia. The man didn’t know anything. Including which industry he was in or how to wipe that priggy smirk off his face.

Hayward’s disingenuousness was so complete he actually might have put himself in jeopardy of being charged with impersonating a Congressman. The deceit, the whole deceit, and nothing but deceit. His ability to be so utterly elusive, evasive and impossible to pin down could lead to a career filling in for the Roadrunner in future Looney Tunes cartoons.

Not to mention that grilling him on technical questions was predestined to be as fruitless as Antarctica in July. As CEO of a huge corporation, he’s got lackeys and minions and stooges and toadies for the heavy lifting of knowing stuff. Mr. Hayward’s job is to massage shareholders and pose for the cover of yearly financial reports, and in times of trouble act as designated fire hydrant to packs of media-hungry dogs. Or cartoon coyotes posing as concerned Congressmen.

This televised dramaturgy wasn’t ever about answers. This was pure stagecraft. Congressional hearings are to hypocrisy what green felt is to pool tables. Especially the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. Which is code for the Big Oil Boys. The same politicians who receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions every year from the very people they’re supposedly regulating. Foxes, hen houses and flying feathers spring to mind.

The only person briefly maintaining a semblance of integrity was Rep. Joe Barton, R- Exxon-Mobil, who opened the proceedings by apologizing to BP for what he called a White House “shakedown.” At least this guy knows who his friends are. The very definition of an honest politician: one who stays bought.

But buyee’s remorse prevailed. Mere hours later, after a quiet tête-à-tête with the biggest dogs in the Republican Party, Barton emerged to call another press conference where he retracted his apology. That’s right. He apologized for his apology. For which we should apologize. Reportedly, the wolves threatened his committee seniority. And so he caved. And covered his comfortable butt. Reverted to form. Back to the normal scheme of things. Politics as usual, exponential factor four. Ain’t it grand?

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Will Durst is a San Francisco-based political comic who often writes. This being a curious example. Catch his one-man show, “The Lieutenant Governor from the State of Confusion,” at a performing arts center near you. His new CD, “Raging Moderate” from Stand Up! Records, is now available on both iTunes and Amazon. Coming this fall: “Where the Rogue Things Go.”

Copyright ©2010, Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. Call Cari Dawson-Bartley at 800-696-7561 or e-mail [email protected]. Will Durst is a political comedian who has performed around the world. He is a familiar pundit on television and radio. E-mail Will at [email protected]. Check out willandwillie.com for the latest podcast. Will Durst’s book, “The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing,” is available from Amazon and better bookstores all over this great land of ours. Don’t forget to check out his rooftop comedy minutes at: http://www.rooftopcomedy.com/shows/BurstOfDurst.

Raging Moderate, by Will Durst

The same way that crème brulée is unlike pork rinds, and a Lincoln Town Car is not a pickup truck, so is Barack Obama not George Bush. As a matter of fact, one of the reasons Barack Obama is currently president is because he’s SO not George Bush. He might just be the most UnBushish politician currently in possession of a Y chromosome with the possible exception of Jerry Brown, who doesn’t count because he’s an alien.

Cartoon by Cam Cardow - Ottawa Citize (click to reprint)

But the relentlessly dispiriting Gulf Coast Leakage has beaten America with Jimmy Carter’s feeble stick and we’re feeling as impotent as a eunuch watching Cinemax at 3 a.m. on a Saturday morning; trembling for Daddy to come to our rescue and punch the bad spill in the face. Hence, the media skies have been clouded with entreaties for the president to get his spurs on and Cowboy Up in front of we wee ones.

Calls have come from the left and the right in whispers and in shouts to do something bold and avoid becoming Mister Mission Unaccomplished. Never content to let a national crisis stand in the way of politics, the right has questioned the president’s manhood, suggesting the cold spring Gulf waters may have caused massive shriveling amongst the spillage. Even Spike Lee exhorted him to “one time, go off.” And what Spike Lee says, goes. Just ask the New York Knicks.

For good or for ill, Obama responded. First by intimating he was furious. And you could tell he really was upset because his face got all frowny-like. Less emphasis on hope and more on concerned contemplation. Then Press Secretary Robert Gibbs spoke of a clenched jaw. Which to be honest, could mean anything. Might have gotten a piece of tofu caught in his bridgework. Or perhaps he was trying to squeeze out the last bit of flavor in his Juicy Fruit. We don’t know.

Finally, Obama was heard to say, “We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose butt to kick.” Only he didn’t say butt. He said the A word that rhymes with big mouth bass. Whoa. Dude. Settle. Mister President. Sir. You are many things. But Butt Kicking Chief Executive is not why we hired you. Right now we need that calm and collected smartypants whose idea of wild and crazy is working till his deodorant nearly expires. Cooler than the other side of the pillow. Penguin-tail time.

Dubyah reminded us of an entitled, cackling jock giving geeks and nerds two-handed wedgies in the high school bathroom. You, however, are here to teach those dorks how to retire to a stall and rearrange themselves before reentering the hallway, studying hard and getting that job paying enough to turn the wedgie-giver’s dad’s GM dealership into a solar panel production facility.

You don’t need to answer Spike Lee’s outbursts. What, you going to base our foreign policy on an offhand remark by Delroy Lindo? America doesn’t need Harrison Ford or The Incredible Hulk flying out of the cargo door of Air Force One. Not even the Credible Hulk. Look at Congress. We got plenty of Hulks. Besides, you don’t wear the right kind of Butt Kicking Shoes. For that, you need cowboy boots. With those beautiful Italian loafers, a person runs the risk of spraining a foot. Or a midterm election.

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Will Durst is a San Francisco-based political comic who often writes. This being an egregious example. Catch his one-man show, “The Lieutenant Governor from the State of Confusion,” at a performing arts center near you. His new CD, “Raging Moderate” from Stand Up! Records, is now available on both iTunes and Amazon. Coming this fall: “Where the Rogue Things Go.”

Copyright ©2010, Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. Call Cari Dawson-Bartley at 800-696-7561 or e-mail [email protected]. Will Durst is a political comedian who has performed around the world. He is a familiar pundit on television and radio. E-mail Will at [email protected]. Check out willandwillie.com for the latest podcast. Will Durst’s book, “The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing,” is available from Amazon and better bookstores all over this great land of ours. Don’t forget to check out his rooftop comedy minutes at: http://www.rooftopcomedy.com/shows/BurstOfDurst.

Raging Moderate, by Will Durst

To say the news coming out of the Gulf is not what you call encouraging is like saying it’s been a rough week for Dennis Hopper. And it’s making people crazy. No. Really. Crazy. Louisiana native and Democratic strategist James Carville went off on the President like a string of overstuffed firecrackers in a pot-bellied stove. And for Carville to savage the leader of his own party either means he’s mad as hell and can’t take it anymore or his wife Mary Matalin’s naggingly oppressive monotonic brain-washing has achieved full saturation. I would hazard a bit of both.

Cartoon by Taylor Jones - Cagle Cartoons (click to reprint)

You got Republicans calling for domestic government intervention. While on the other side of Loopyville, some Dems are screaming for the military to take over. What the hell do they expect the Army to be able to do that BP can’t, shoot it? Surround the mil- deep spill, capture and occupy it? Proceed to win its hearts and minds? Hey, Alice, which way out of this rabbit hole?

Outside of that stone plug that Jack used in “Lost,” BP appears to have tried everything: Top Hat. Top Kill. Top Cat. Top Chef. Topkapi. Topographical maps. Topol. Topamax. Topo Gigio. But thus far, the only thing they’ve managed to accomplish is to make the spill very, very angry. Not as angry as folks near the affected areas who just want to get back to their lives. Especially in the wake of the recent “We’re BP and we’re so sorry” ad campaign that’s costing millions to air in lieu of expediting financial claims. Destined to rank right up there with marrying a Kardashian, for worst PR move, EVER.

Now word comes down the plumey pike that the wound we opened in the lower epidermis of the Earth might not be closed until a relief well is finished sometime in August, so perhaps we should accept the fact that the Gulf is short-term doomed and start to seek out the bright sides of the BP Oil Spill.

America has always been the Imperial Wizard of the International Optimists League. And now is a perfect time for us to jump back into the silver lining business. Because when this country is handed lemons, we make lemonade. All we need is a couple of dump trucks full of sugar and, ironically, some clean water.

TOP 15 BRIGHT SIDES OF THE BP OIL SPILL:

“¢ Your shrimp dish comes pre-marinated.

“¢ Newly affordable waterfront properties.

“¢ Frolicsome beachside tar-ball fights.

“¢ Gulf Coast salad dressing: just add vinegar.

“¢ Jet Skis able to refuel mid-trip.

“¢ Lubricated Jelly Fish.

“¢ Mortared with oil and tar, sand castles now tide-proof.

“¢ Fewer silly election-year cries of “Drill, Baby, Drill.”

“¢ No more squeaky oysters.

“¢ Need an oil change? Wander down to water’s edge and squeegee a duck.

“¢ Hot enough day, and voila: the world’s largest fish fry.

“¢ Don’t bother drilling for oil, the oil is coming to us.

“¢ Romantic beach bonfires 24/7.

“¢Â  Wriggling out of your tight swimsuit is a breeze.

“¢ Every Gulf dock and pier instantly doubles as a Slip ‘n Slide.

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Will Durst is a San Francisco-based political comic who often writes. This being an evident example. Catch his one-man show, “The Lieutenant Governor from the State of Confusion,” at a performing arts center near you. His new CD, “Raging Moderate” from Stand Up! Records, is now available on both iTunes and Amazon.

Copyright ©2010, Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. Call Cari Dawson-Bartley at 800-696-7561 or e-mail [email protected]. Will Durst is a political comedian who has performed around the world. He is a familiar pundit on television and radio. E-mail Will at [email protected]. Check out willandwillie.com for the latest podcast. Will Durst’s book, “The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing,” is available from Amazon and better bookstores all over this great land of ours. Don’t forget to check out his rooftop comedy minutes at: http://www.rooftopcomedy.com/shows/BurstOfDurst.

Raging Moderate, by Will Durst

The president may have wrestled Afghanistan and Iraq to shaky standoffs but the newest skirmish in the heads-up display of Air Force One shows him losing the third Gulf War and losing bad. Taking shots from both sides — from both sides. Republicans are yelling at Obama for holding BP responsible for the Deepwater Horizon disaster AND for not doing enough to clean it up. That man sure is a geographic oddity. On two wrong sides of the same issue. Which ain’t easy.

Cartoon by Brian Fairrington - Cagle Cartoons (click to reprint)

The main burst of charges that Obama is scapegoating British Petroleum are oozing from the newest Republican Senate candidate from Kentucky, Rand Paul. A man naturally disposed to disturbing people with both his views and his coif. Please, someone, have the simple common human decency to tell him that 1985 is calling and it wants its hair back. Not even Lyle Lovett wears it like that anymore. Anthony Geary maybe.

But I digress. Calls are streaming across the aisle for the president to ignore BP’s jurisdictional claims and have the military take over. Because people suspect BP cannot be trusted. About anything. If they smile and say, “Hello,” check your back for shards of a malfunctioning Blowout Protector. “We’re trying our best.” We are familiar with your best. Your best sucks.

Top Kill was supposed to take 12 hours, then 24, 48 and now 96. You don’t have to be Stephen Hawking to spot a mathematical progression here. 12,288 is a mere seven press conferences spewed down the line. They didn’t want the video feed to go public because even you and I and your five-year-old helper-monkey would see the ferocious gushing and realize, “Whoa, that’s more than 5,000 gallons a day. That’s 5,000 gallons a frame. Where’s my banana?”

BP’s sole object is protecting profit. Covering corporate butt. In the last six weeks, not a single word that has leaked out of their mouths has been true. Eventually they will divest themselves of all U.S. assets, change their name and seep offshore to escape financial culpability in the courts, but until then the main object is to deflect blame, keeping responsibility to a minimum. And when I say responsibility, I mean money. The ultimate lubricant.

BP is not concerned with plugging or cleaning or stopping or fixing or reimbursing, except for how it affects the quarterly dividend. To that end they will lie and deny and in-comply and do whatever it takes. They will lie about what happened, what is happening and what will happen. They will lie because that is the culture in which corporations live. They will lie because it is their nature. They will lie because they’re good at it. They will lie to stay in practice. They will lie about lying. Offer up proof. They will lie. They will claim it was their evil twin. Remember when this all started on Earth Day and they said there was no leak. Why? Because they were hoping to get it under control and nobody would be the wiser.

Some people are calling for a boycott of BP. Not enough. Don’t just boycott British Petroleum; ride a bicycle to one of their stations, seize their toilet paper assets and send them to the Gulf. To help clean up. If Obama and the Oil Flushers can’t do the right thing, we’ll do it for them. Then stay on that bicycle for as long as you can.

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Will Durst is a San Francisco based political comic who often writes. This being an indignant example. Catch his one-man show, “The Lieutenant Governor from the State of Confusion,” at the Vallejo (Calif.) Naval Museum June 3, and at the 142 Throckmorton Theatre in Mill Valley, Calif., June 5. His new CD, “Raging Moderate” from Stand Up! Records, is now available on both iTunes and Amazon.

Copyright ©2010, Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. Call Cari Dawson-Bartley at 800-696-7561 or e-mail [email protected]. Will Durst is a political comedian who has performed around the world. He is a familiar pundit on television and radio. E-mail Will at [email protected]. Check out willandwillie.com for the latest podcast. Will Durst’s book, “The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing,” is available from Amazon and better bookstores all over this great land of ours. Don’t forget to check out his rooftop comedy minutes at: http://www.rooftopcomedy.com/shows/BurstOfDurst.

Raging Moderate, by Will Durst

The best news the Democrats have gotten all year long has little to do with early primary results, or regenerating their spine with health care reform. The best news the Democrats have gotten all year is the chair of the Republican National Committee is going to keep his job. He’s been a disaster on the order of Michael Cimino directing “Howard the Duck Meets Pluto Nash on Planet Ishtar.” Democrats have a secret weapon this November and his name is Michael Steele.

Cartoon by Dave Granlund - PoliticalCartoons.com (click to reprint)

Steele is not just the center post in the GOP big-tent movement, he’s the post, the flaps, the stakes, the ties and the canvas; and party leaders would rather stick a fist full of paper cuts in a vat of Tabasco Sauce than write off their first African- American chairman during an election year. These days, the GOP Black Caucus could hold its convention in a phone booth, and they don’t make phone booths anymore, and the analogy still holds.

Most of the places he visits, he’s not simply the only black guy in the room, he’s the only black guy admitted to the grounds without a police escort. His hiring was a blatant attempt to play catch up in the “Coolest African- American in Politics Sweepstakes.” The difference being the Executive Branch landed an intelligent, hard-working political animal, and the Republicans picked a prospect who too perfectly exemplifies their “Me First” philosophy.

Straight out of Annapolis, the RNC chairman ruffled so many feathers the fluttering excess was sufficient to fill every hotel pillow case in Vegas. On CNN last February, he dismissed Rush Limbaugh as “an entertainer” and “incendiary.” The outrage from Rush’s fans, the vocal, visible, thick and dense end of the Republican base, forced Steele to backtrack faster than freshly waxed skis on newly fallen powder.

First he was directed to beg the poster boy for OxyContin Today’s forgiveness. To say Rush was less than gracious is like implying frozen goose fat makes for substandard bicycle spokes. Steele genuflected on Rush’s show and kissed his ring while Rush didn’t bother taking it out of his back pocket.

Since then Steele manages to rankle party regulars on a daily basis. He told The Washington Times the GOP needed to “uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets” pissing off pretty much. everybody. Especially the highly influential one-armed Lollipop Guild. When GOP cognoscenti learned about Mr. Steele’s desire to buy a private jet with party money, he was dismissed as an interloper encroaching on donor turf.

And there’s more. Earlier this year, big wigs demanded to know why an employee was reimbursed $2,000 for an evening at a Hollywood fetish club, and they weren’t taking “excellent appetizers” as an answer. But sex scandals bounce off Republicans like hail off an Aspen roof. The most damaging detail came via an internal investigation finding the party losing money on its major donors program, spending a dollar ten for every dollar raised. Two grand for leather studded lap dances is one thing, failing to bring in the cash: thems fighting words.

Some party luminaries are so dismayed with Steele’s performance, they’ve engineered an end-around, creating a slew of new 527s as a means to funnel GOP donations. The high priest of the Church of Right Wing Big Bucks himself, Karl Rove, being a chief architect. And in the Republican Party, when you start to butt heads with Karl Rove, you better get used to grocery shopping with Salman Rushdie. On your own private jet or under the wheels of a bus back to Maryland.

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Will Durst is a San Francisco-based political comic who writes. This being an incendiary example. Catch him at the Punch Line, May 27- 29, www.punchlinecomedyclub.com, 444 Battery St., San Francisco, 415.397.7573. New CD, “Raging Moderate” from Stand Up! Records now available on both iTunes and Amazon.

Copyright ©2010, Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. Call Cari Dawson-Bartley at 800-696-7561 or e-mail [email protected]. Will Durst is a political comedian who has performed around the world. He is a familiar pundit on television and radio. E-mail Will at [email protected]. Check out willandwillie.com for the latest podcast. Will Durst’s book, “The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing,” is available from Amazon and better bookstores all over this great land of ours. Don’t forget to check out his rooftop comedy minutes at: http://www.rooftopcomedy.com/shows/BurstOfDurst.

Raging Moderate, by Will Durst

There they go again. The Democrats, that is. All Mitch McConnell had to do was threaten to wave his arms and intone his mantra of “Activist Judges!” and they flinched like a red-headed stepchild in goal at the NHL Stanley Cup Finals. On the other hand, when Republicans pick a Supreme Court nominee in the throes of a majority swagger, they shoot the moon choosing an ideologue to the right of Stalin. But the donkeys are as skitterish as a bunny in a tent full of cleat-wearing elephants and inevitably try to slide through leaving no visible ripples in the pond of midterm bipartisanship.

Cartoon by Daryl Cagle - msnbc.com (click to reprint)

Glorying in his chance to replace John Paul Stevens’ doctor as the most important liberal in America, President Obama nominated moderate Elena Kagan to walk in the 90-year-old’s comfortable shoes. If confirmed, she’ll become the third woman and fourth Supreme Court Justice from New York City: Scalia from Queens, Sotomayor from the Bronx, Ginsburg from Brooklyn and now Kagan from Manhattan. Don’t you love the new diversity? Be surprised if someone isn’t compiling a short list of qualified nominees from Staten Island. Who went to Harvard.

Kagan attended Princeton, Oxford and Harvard, a potential sixth sitting justice to wear the Crimson. Delivering another crippling blow to we state schoolies. And the fact that I’m using “schoolies” might be part of the problem. Recent trends report the less we know of a candidate, the better their chance of slaloming through the chain-link fence of character assassination known as the Senate Confirmation Hearings; thus we know more about Martian quantum physics than we do Ms. Kagan. Besides being former dean of Harvard Law and the current solicitor general of the United States, which must mean she’s proved herself to be a pretty good solicitor. And a general. So she’s got that going for her.

She wrote her senior thesis on “socialism in the early 20th century,” raising a red flag to conservatives who consider socialism contagious; even though she only studied it, she is open to accusations of being a carrier. Typhoid Elena. Her major sticking point is a lack of judicial experience, and to say her paper trail is scant is like intimating that BP is unlikely to be named winner of the Shrimp Fishers of America Good Citizen of the Year Award.

Prepared to put on the last robe she’ll ever wear, Kagan has taken blank slate to a whole new schoolhouse. And because of her track record vacuum, her sexuality or lack thereof has begun sidling center stage. The question: Is she gay? And if so, is she out? And if not, who cares? Eliott Spitzer, a Harvard classmate, says she went out on dates with men but not with him. Because when it comes to sex, Spitzer apparently is our go-to guy.

Granted, she is 50 and unmarried, and was photographed playing softball and wearing flannel, setting most of Middle America’s gaydar a-tingling. What’s the old joke: we don’t know if Elena Kagan is a lesbian, but her hair is. However, unless photos of her in bed with the Indigo Girls surface in the Enquirer, gay, straight or Gary, the first Monday in October, the Supreme Court will consist of six Catholics and three Jews. Sounds like the dance card at a KKK lawn-burning jamboree. We certainly have come a long way. Baby. Then again, who better to decide questions of innocence than members of the planet’s two most guilt-consumed faiths?

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Will Durst is a San Francisco-based political comic who writes. This being a dazzling example. Catch him at the Punch Line, May 27- 29, www.punchlinecomedyclub.com, 444 Battery St., San Francisco, 415.397.7573. New CD, “Raging Moderate” from Stand Up! Records now available on both iTunes and Amazon.

Copyright ©2010, Will Durst, distributed by the Cagle Cartoons Inc. syndicate. Call Cari Dawson-Bartley at 800-696-7561 or e-mail [email protected]. Will Durst is a political comedian who has performed around the world. He is a familiar pundit on television and radio. E-mail Will at [email protected]. Check out willandwillie.com for the latest podcast. Will Durst’s book, “The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing,” is available from Amazon and better bookstores all over this great land of ours. Don’t forget to check out his rooftop comedy minutes at: http://www.rooftopcomedy.com/shows/BurstOfDurst.