Each week, the Comics Curmudgeon helps explain Today’s Cartoons. This week, he takes on the proliferation of lame Santa cartoons which might need to go away even more than the Christmas music that is still on rotation at the mall and makes us want to kill kill kill.

By now, those of you who celebrate Christmas, and even you anti-American communists who don’t, are sitting in a pile of wrinkled wrapping paper and cardboard boxes made possible by the miraculous figure who’s the real reason for the season. I’m talking, of course, about Santa Claus. The very fact that he travels all over the earth at hypersonic speeds in an open sleigh indicates that his body, long mocked as a “bowlful of jelly,” is actually perfectly designed for maximum malleability: he flattens into a disk at maximum speed, but once his transport drops down to a near-human velocity, he just snaps back into shape. Similarly, because Santa has worked so hard to be all things to all the world’s little children, his metaphorical image is almost as easy to squish into any desired shape. This week: too many cartoonists take advantage of Santa’s good nature and put him through things no jolly old elf should ever have to endure. MORE »

In an effort to make the routine invasion of one’s privacy seem more warm and fuzzy, NORAD is showing how it can spend your tax dollars to track the shit out of Santa Claus. If NORAD is any guide, there’s a couple of Christians in Iran that haven’t yet been murdered or imprisoned and there are Africans that know it’s Christmas time after all. Local television news broadcasts around the country will also have something to report tonight that isn’t a family burned out of their house by a Christmas tree fire or a soup kitchen feeding some poor people. [NORAD Tracks Santa 2007]

Any powerful Ida-ho needs a strong “Lion” behind him. And doesn’t the senior senator from Idaho Mr. Larry Craig know this! In a statement yesterday entitled “Dreaming of a Clean (Energy) Christmas,” where he mostly brags about how he got to make out with George Bush at the White House the other day, Craig inserts a special love quote for his inspiration: William E. Borah, the “Lion of Idaho.” Oh Larry, we all know you-da-ho! MORE »

Just recently, my Wonkette inbox was quite atwitter with the glow of a message from “John McCain,” because the subject line was “Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.” OMG Thanks John McCain! That’s so nice and precious of you to send to me, considering I make fun of your swollen torture cheeks every day. Inside the e-mail, however, John tells his “Christmas Story,” and the first paragraph was the least “happy” or “merry” thing imaginable — like that new ad of his. Yeah yeah, he did all sorts of great sacrifices for Americans or some such. Still, um, TMI? We’ll take the less guilt-inducing road and just say, Merry Holidays, WALNUTS! [JohnMcCain.com]

Who here uses Facebook? Uh huh, that’s what I thought, pretty much all of you. Guess what? You’re all going to fucking die. Or that’s what The Nation says in an article they just posted, and kudos to them for getting a whole issue to press the night of their Christmas party. Double kudos for showing me such a good time and not skimping on the booze. As a result, I almost feel bad about what I’m about to do. But, hey, my people did kill Christ so that really says something about my Christmas spirit. Anywho, we’ll take a look at The Nation’s paranoid schizophrenic Facebook-as-Fascism story and explain why it’s, well, retarded, right after the jump. MORE »

While there’s no fruitcake in Rudy’s second Christmas (or should I say holiday?) ad, there is more fakery in it than a Mitt Romney abortion speech. His collegial repartee with Santy Claus, however, reveals the niceness for the fraud that it is: The two get a good laugh over how Rudy’s the meanest, most vengeful politician in the election. What a fruitcake. [Join Rudy 2008]

Rudy Giuliani has unveiled his Christmas ads (because there are multiple ones!), within which he fantasizes about allowing the Virgin Mary to get an abortion for Jesus, since he’s soooo pro-choice. Either that, or — as in the one above — he screams about FRUITCAKE! with Santy Claus. I think we have a new running joke, and I also think “FRUITCAKE!” while holding a candy cane will be Giuliani’s “Howard Dean moment.” Someone at the RNC should inject this man with 911 cc’s of 9/11-serum before his faghagness becomes uncontainable. [Join Rudy 2008]

Mike Huckabee appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning and, among other things, discussed that Christmas ad with the floating not-so-subliminal white cross in the background. (Quick aside: The whole message of the video is about Jesus being the only thing that matters. Why is an intersection of two white lines in the background somehow more controversial than the scary ass sounds that come out of his mouth? Some fucking people….) ANYWAY, Huckabee explains that it was just a bookshelf, and Joe Scarborough laughs his ass off; then at the end his little blond co-host gets bitingly sarcastic. Where’s Tucker Carlson when you need him?

Still haven’t bought your special someone a Christmas gift? Well let salesman Dennis Kucinich make you v. v. special offer: For only $219.95, Dennis Kucinich sell you “a Palm Beach County voting machine from the 2000 election ‘containing actual chads,’ with a ‘replica butterfly ballot’ and a letter signed by Kucinich proclaiming ‘the stolen presidential election of 2000,’” to quote Gannett News. Very good price, my friend. MORE »

There is pretty much nothing sacred to a lobbyist, except his or her own paycheck, Christmas included. And so it is that lobbyists are using Christmas (and its trees) to try to force through long-coveted legislation in the final days of December/the 2007 legislative session.

MORE »

The National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) is trying to get more support for next year’s elections with this play on that famous song, “Twelve Days of Christmas,” or whatever it’s called. Go ahead and watch. We’ll wait. [Pause]. OK SORRY! We knew it was bad and we made you watch anyway. Again, sorry. But yeah, still, basic point: The Republicans are going to lose everything next year by like 20 million points. [YouTube]