Comedy Tonight: Teabagger Tales -- sure, today this is satire, but tomorrow . . . ?

by Ken

We were talking just the other day ("Can you tell which clueless git comes from 'The Onion,' and which from Beckapalooza?") about the strain the modern-day right is putting on folks who do political satire, the loonies having leapt the bounds, not just of the political spectrum, but of the sense-and-sanity one too. It has become increasingly difficult to make ridicule them without having today's Profile in Preposterousness turn into tomorrow's Teabagger Tale. Consequently it's becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish between satire and raw right-wing rapportage.

So yeah, this bit of psychic mayhem from Andy Borowitz is easy to tab as satire. For today, at least.

Rabid Dog Briefly Mistaken for Tea Party Candidate
Receives Standing Ovation at Missouri Rally

JEFFERSON CITY, MO (The Borowitz Report) - A rabid Doberman Pinscher jumped on stage at a Tea Party rally in Missouri on Labor Day and barked at the crowd for nearly twenty minutes before people realized he was not a candidate.

The dog, later identified by its owner as "Mister Buster," held the crowd spellbound as he barked, growled, and frothed at the mouth, eventually receiving a standing ovation for his exertions.

Gwendolene Thomason, 42, a Tea Party supporter from Jefferson City, was one of the hundreds on hand who were convinced that the Doberman was a Tea Party candidate until he was outed as a dog.

"I liked what he had to say," she said. "He reminded me of Glenn Beck, only furrier."

The Doberman’s canine identity finally became clear when he lunged at a man in the front row and wrested a hamburger from his right hand, taking two of the man's fingers with it.

While the discovery that Mister Buster was not a Tea Party candidate disappointed many in attendance, Ms. Thomason held out hope that, dog or no, he might consider running for office at some point.

"I liked the way he bit off that guy's hand, and the way he did his business in the middle of the stage," she said. "We need more of that in Washington."

Elsewhere, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer named Wednesday a state holiday "to give me more time to think of what to say."

Um, two things:

(1) The dog may have been furrier than Glenn, but Glenn is still fuzzier, as in that warm-and-fuzzy "you know how society chewed me up and spat out the bones and say have you ever thought about buying gold?" vibe he gives off, which I've hardly ever known a Doberman that could do. (I don't doubt that the dog had a better grasp of the issues and made more sense than Glenn.)

(2) Just to be absolutely clear on the point, the dog is not a candidate, right? As of now, at least.

#