Sunday's Doonesbury comic strip mocks the tea-party movement -- as if the Obama era were defined by tax-cutting. Gay public-radio talk-show host Mark Slackmeyer is interviewing "Lamont Whirley," tea party activist:
Mr. Whirley, as you know, the original Boston Tea Party was a protest against taxation without representation...
But the modern Tea Party movement was formed last spring...
...in response to your duly elected representatives enacting tax cuts for almost all American workers.
Can you explain the tea party's philosophical incoherence?
Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau then draws "Whirley" as a wacko, wearing a Santa suit and beard, an Uncle Sam top hat, a powdered white wig, and a robber's mask, as he holds a pumpkin. Whirley replies: "Our what?" Slackmeyer responds: "Never mind -- elitist question."
Trudeau is referring to a $400-per-worker tax cut that Obama and the Democrats threw into the "stimulus" bill. He ignores several counter-points -- as in the tax hike on cigarettes to finance children's health care subsidies. He also avoids how for about a third of the people, it's not a tax refund, but a goverment subsidy.
But Trudeau's point is to suggest that there's no rationale for conservatives to be upset with Obama's fiscal policy, which is quite a stretch.
