CSotD: Indeed, the jokes wrote themselves

Yesterday, I predicted that the memes about Ivanka’s Goya ad would come faster than the cartoons. I was wrong, and, while some were better than others, I was impressed with the rapidity with which the professional commentaries appeared.

I don’t think that’s a trade-off. My experience is that the cartoonists who drift in a few days or even a week late don’t arrive with anything more stunning, which is too bad. If they’re constrained by an iron-clad, imposed schedule, they should at least compensate for their lack of immediacy with some brilliance.

And, BTW, if you are going to come in late, you’ve had time to make sure you aren’t mirroring a gag that’s already been done.

Don’t hand me that line about “not wanting to be influenced by others.” Sketch it out first and then take a look around.

Now where the hell was I?

Oh, yeah. So, looking above, Clay Jones capitalized on both the Goya ad and Ivanka’s new position as Job Counselor to the World, and I admire the way he caps a lengthy set-up with a terse bit of bathos.

 

Brian Slyngstad also hits both targets, with a bit more venom in his call-out of her privilege.

It really is unconscious, I believe. The apocryphal Marie Antoinette quote, “let them eat cake,” is more powerful when translated properly, because what she said, to the degree she said it at all, upon being told the peasants had no bread was “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche.”

So, it would be better translated as “Then they should eat buns,” which is a more ironic indicator that she genuinely doesn’t understand their problem. Slyngstad comes closer to that innocent but toxic failure to connect.

 

Ed Hall turns it into a fart joke, which wouldn’t be particularly worthy if she weren’t always the immaculately dressed princess with every hair in place.

It does inspire a snicker, but perhaps it should inspire a little pity. When I was in college, those pretty, every-hair-in-place girls didn’t have the time of day for a scruffy guitarslinger, but I later hooked up with one for an extended period and her neurotic need to be perfect was kind of scary.

I’ve only started Mary Trump’s book, so I don’t know if she’ll get around to Ivanka’s need to please, but the kid also gives off an air of having missed the bus, of being the pathetic conformist Richard Farina warned us about right down to her unnecessary rhinoplastic enhancement.

They’re liable to hunt you down
And dress you in a wedding gown
And offer substantial careers

They’ll buy you a suit of clothes
And pay to get another nose
So no one will turn you away

However, given her position, I’m inclined to put her in with the madman with a stick Samuel Johnson spoke of: We should, in the interests of our own safety, knock her down first, and pity her later.

 

Kevin Siers points to the ethical issue of a public servant promoting a commercial product, and he cuts to the chase in conflating the product with the man whose politics are supported by Goya profits.

The Trump family has been profiting off the presidency since that absurd dog-and-pony show where they promised to stand in front of several stacks of blank paper in their dedication to only making money that people gave them. Or something.

And Dear Leader donates his salary, though he could make a larger contribution to the Treasury by simply comping the Secret Service on their golf carts.

Next to which Ivanka shilling for one of his political contributors doesn’t amount to a hill of … okay, never mind.

I’ll just point out that, when it started to look like Nixon had to go, they first dug into some of Spiro’s ethical lapses so we didn’t end up with a complete jackanapes in the Oval Office.

They’re there all along, but you have to want to look.

 

As Jack Ohman suggests, the people who would need to look clearly don’t want to, because they certainly wouldn’t have to look very hard.

 

I particularly like Nick Anderson‘s take, because not only is he cutting to the chase, vis-a-vis a Hispanic company promoting a man who clearly hates Hispanic people, but he does it with a cheerful caricature of Ivanka and a style of cage that combine to suggest the irony of one bird in a cage being held by yet another.

While, comparing their expressions, only one of them understands their pathetic captivity.

 

Darrin Bell is, predictably, not nearly so kind in laying out his opinion of the whole thing or in depicting Ivanka’s overbite.

He changes the subject, keeping the cheerful, insensitive pose, and, after all, that blissful, entitled unawareness certainly extends beyond beans.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but isn’t it traditional for tyrants and corrupt dictators to shelter their children from the stains?

Or at least to put Sonny in line to become godfather, and let Michael be the clean one with a chance at the Senate or better.

(Yes, I’ve gotten to the point in Mary’s book where she explains how Fred Trump expected Fred Jr to succeed him and destroyed the kid with those expectations, then reluctantly settled on Dysfunctional Donald as second choice.)

 

Finally, with his trademark gentle touch, David Rowe reminds us that the Diaper Don also posed for a promotional photograph with a selection of Goya products.

And is indifferent to the coronavirus threat. And spends time absorbing rightwing propaganda and tweeting when he ought to be working.

Other’n that, he’s a fine man and a great leader. And so good looking — never a hair out of place!

 

And now for something completely different but needed

It’s always nice when someone asks a question I’m prepared to answer, and Reply All offers up a slow, underhand pitch that I can smack into the stands simply by virtue of being so much older than Donna Lewis.

This isn’t the over-played main theme, but a better song from a fine, fine movie.

(Lyrics here, hit translate button for English.)

Indeed, at this point, we really need l’amour to be bien plus fort que nous.