DOONESBURY by G. B. Trudeau [Click to enlarge.]by KenNot so long ago -- a year, maybe? -- a known history with women like The Donald's would have been, by itself, an absolute disqualifying factor in an American national political campaign. (What about JFK's now-well-known philandering, you say? Of course it was known to insiders at the time, just as The Donald's was. Is there any question, though, that if the country had known then what we later came to know, yes indeed, it would have been an absolute disqualifying factor.) In The Donald's case this is only one of a cluster of what would once have been, each by itself, an absolute disqualifying factor, and while I'm not going to be so foolish as to rank them in order of disqualificatory merit, but I will say on behalf of this one that it tells us something so debased about the mind at work that its disqualificatory power is considerably enhanced.And yet the Trump voters either didn't care (hey, that's just "guy stuff," right?) or thought that it's not that big a deal. Maybe that it's, you know, overstated -- like, where were all those now-whining babes back when it was happening, huh, huh? The sort of thing as the veil started to lift from the full horror of Roger Ailes's reign of sexual predation at Fox Noise, for which it seems to me he still ought to be on Death Row, with his sizable of hench-enablers facing lifetime-without-possibility-of-parole prison terms.Which I hope explains why I fixed on today's Doonesbury. For the benefit of non-initiates, here's some Doonesbury-website background on our Boopsie:
BARBARA ANN BOOPSTEINDuring her Hollywood heyday, Barbara Ann Boopstein was called "the drinking man's Meryl Streep." Stardom has thus far eluded the Divine Miss B, but she knows it's only a matter of lifetimes. She speaks with a certain authority: in a previous incarnation she was Lorna Doone. Her theatrical credits thus far include numerous exercise videos and several teensploitation flicks. She was featured in the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated, played Barbara Bush in the made-for -TV movie Poppy: The War Years, and was mentioned in Andy Warhol's diary. Activities in service to her country include co-hosting the Times Square victory parade marking the end of the Cold War, posing for a popular pinup poster for the Desert Shield troops, and working with the Malibu Military Family Support Group. She served on the California State Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem, and, on the personal front, was delighted to be Babe of Honor at Hugh and Kimberly Hefner's wedding. Regrettably for her fans, she did not make the cut in "Survivor" tryouts. But her body, bit-mapped and scanned, lives on in a variety of media, generating royalties as the template for Lara Croft in "Tomb Raider" and Julia Roberts' breasts in "Erin Brockovich". Having concluded a longtime association, Boopsie no longer shares her body with the channeled 25,000-year-old warrior Hunk-Ra. Along with college sweetheart and Fighting Swooshes football coach B.D., daughter Sam and nanny Zonker Harris, she once again calls Walden home.
And while we're at it, since today's strip focuses on B.D. as well:
B.D.College football star, Vietnam Vet, third-string quarterback for the Rams, Gulf War reservist, California Highway Patrol officer -- B.D. has worn many helmets o ver the years. He and his wife, starlet Barbara Ann Boopstein, share many memories of the 70s and their years at Walden Commune -- she posing for Playboy , he volunteering for Vietnam to get out of writing a term paper. Though captured by a Vietcong terrorist named Phred and wounded by a beer can, B.D. left the Nam relatively unscathed.In his subsequent role as Boopsie's hardheaded Hollywood manager, B.D. exhibited minor skills and major attitude, a combination that did not help extend her list of credits. Their main production was Samantha, born in 1992. Better suited to life in uniform, B.D. was called to serve in Desert Storm, and later as a CHIP officer, but a diagnosis of Gulf War Syndrome left him sidelined and bitter.A return to Vietnam helped him bury old demons and dig up several old war buddies - including Phred, now a mover and shaker in the new Vietnam. Hired by his alma mater to coach the football team he once quarterbacked, B.D. has come full circle, he and Boopsie once again living in the house at Walden where they first met.Reactivated for a second Gulf War, B.D. was shipped out to Kuwait, leaving the Fighting Swooshes in Acting-Coach Boopsie's care. He serves as a public affairs officer at Camp Blowback, embedding journalists in frontline army combat units.
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