(If you don’t know who Nelson Muntz is, click here.)
Many years ago, I wrote a series of short-shorts for an SF magazine, all of which ended in puns. In one of these stories, I wrote about a secret agent who had to foment a rebellion against a king who was seen as something close to godlike by his subjects. A key part of the plan involved employing satire to make the the king seem less grand, and therefore more vulnerable and susceptible to overthrow. The punch line involved the phrase “dilution of grandeur.” (You were warned.)
One of the things that has bumfuzzled me about the current administration is the tendency of comedians and the press (who claim to challenge authority) to roll over for the Current Occupant. (Yeah, yeah, bias… I know. Q.E.D.) But every once in a while, I see a hint that at least some folks out there are willing to call Bravo Sierra on the Obamandias bit.
Meanwhile, NBC’s chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel has observed that the Obama administration doesn’t seem to have won us any friends at all:
Politicians should be mocked on a regular basis. The grandeur should be diluted. They are employees, not nobles. Maybe then more of us would realize that the government can’t save us — its agents are no more competent than anyone else.
A tip of the Mondo Mortarboard to Nick Gillespie at Reason.
