CARTOON KNOWLEDGE: What’s A ‘Snollygoster’? We Have Three Prime Examples In Wisconsin

By Mark L. Taylor
The Commoner Call (2/27/17)

Commoner Call reader Richard Smith sent in a note the other day alerting me to probably the best word I have ever seen to describe a politician. It is one of those words that sounds exactly like what it means: snollygoster.

It’s perfectly suited to a particular brand of politician citizens on both sides of the American political chasm have come to loathe. Truly, snollygoster is a tag with bipartisan applications.

While all politicians have to occasionally stretch the truth or compromise on some campaign promise or utter some meaningless BS to smooth over a bruised ego or angry constituent or align with some especially squirmy reptile from across the aisle to move a piece of legislation forward, there are others who just embody all the worst qualities of politicians.  Three such critters immediately come to mind here in Wisconsin: Gov. Scott “Bucky Weasel” Walker; Rep. Paul “Brown-Noser” Ryan; and Rep. Ron “Wall Street” Kind.

For highly accomplished snollygosters like Bucky Weasel, Brown-Noser and Wall Street there is no principle, promise or precedent that cannot be bent, broken, walked back, or just plain ignored. This trio has promoted self promotion to a high – low – artform. These guys make folklore shape shifters look like snoring old poops.

Governor Bucky Weasel’s whole tawdry time in office has been marked with outright lies, blame shifting and incredulous displays of “what-me?” irresponsibility that would embarrass an acting out 9 year-old who just trashed the WalMart toy department. Promised Bucky Weasel budget surpluses are dwarfed by the kind of bonding debt that would give Ross Perot a conniption fit. Bucky Weasel promised 250,000 new jobs and the latest national numbers have Wisconsin coming in 33rd in job creation. Where the average  job creation among the states was 2.1%, Bucky Weasel has managed to squeak out 1.6%. Neighboring Minnesota, with a similar population, produced 39,300 more jobs than Bucky Weasel and his fellow GOP legislative rodents.  Weasel did beat out lefty Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton by Wisconsin having a greater growth in poverty. But, hey, it’s all good according to Bucky Weasel.

(Actually, at the time he made that promise about a quarter-million new jobs it was more jobs than we had unemployed workers; we would have had a negative unemployment rate. A stunning display of Olympian snollygostering that will stand the test of time. Or until the 2018 gubernatorial campaign.)

 

Snollycoster Ninja

 

Rep. Brown-Noser is the snollygoster Ninja. It is widely known Brown-Noser has no calcium in his spine; it is made up instead of a gelatinous yellow goo brewed up in a Koch Industries underground bunker lab and injected into the congress critter monthly on the night of the full moon. He has displayed an impressive ability to not only tell his party with a straight face that 2 + 2 = 3 but to get them to believe it. While he decries federal spending the family business has chased plenty of federal checks. Known as the intellectual heavyweight of the Republican Party, Brown-Noser has an advanced degree in Ayn Rand theology and can selectively edit out all Roman Catholic teachings he learned in catechism class about charity and kindness for the poor, and welcoming the refugee faster than Donald Trump can tap out a Tweet whining about the press. Truly impressive … in a depressing sort of way.

Speaking of Trump, Brown-Noser really gave that gelatinous spine a workout during the 2016 presidential primary and general election. Depending upon what brain fart Trump popped out for the day, Brown-Noser was jumping on and off the fabled Trump Train more than a conductor with intestinal parasites. When the “pussy grabbing” tape emerged in October Brown-Noser pontificated that a line had been crossed. He was so “sickened” by Trump’s vulgarity that he disinvited the GOP’s amateur gynecologist from an Elkhorn fairgrounds campaign event. That didn’t go down so well. When Trump didn’t show up one of the pussy grabbing Trumpsters called Brown-Noser a “jackass” (an uncharacteristic bit of honesty in a Republican event) and then the crowd gnawed the bleachers to splinters. Now, of course, Brown-Noser is one of Trump’s biggest cheerleaders.

Both Brown-Noser and Bucky Weasel stood boldly against the Trump Muslim ban … before they were for it. True snollygosters.

 

Not just Rethuglicans

 

Rep. Wall Street proves the snollygoster label is completely bipartisan. While jogging around the Third Congressional District Dem Rep. Wall Street spouts a good spiel about watching out for all the little folks. Why, one would think, Rep. Wall Street is the only one standing between us and the band of thugs and immoral buccaneers of New York finance. Of course the truth is different when Wall Street gets back to his velvet-lined Washington D.C. burrow. Back home he is doing the work of the Third Way as the long-time honorary co-chair of the slickly-packaged Washington, DC based “think” tank funded by Wall Street financiers specializing in bargaining away our common wealth and the security of citizens for the greed of the corporate class. Third Way was founded to blunt, smother and snuff out progressive economic reform that might threaten even a nickel of ill-gotten theft by the financial class.

But as a professional snollygoster one betrayal is not enough. Rep. Wall Street is also a big shot in the New Democrat Coalition (NDC). In fact he was one of the founding members and the group’s first chairman. He recently was given the heady title of “Chairman Emeritus”. The New Democrat Coalition is just another version of Wall Street funded betrayal. In fact, back in 2010 the public interest research group ProPublica referred to Kind’s NDC as “The Coalition Pharma and Wall Street Love”.

As a true snollygoster Rep. Wall Street is totally bipartisan as we saw over the last couple years as he teamed up with Brown-Noser to try to jam through the corporate-written Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Of course there are plenty of snollygosters in both corrupt parties, but our three most prominent Badger snollygosters are truly the poster pups of both the mongrel breed and the disease.

*****

Snollygosters Begin Young: Even Back In High School People Knew The Truth About Rep. Paul “Brown-Noser” Ryan

Check Out A Page From Rep. Brown-Noser’s High School Year Book…

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(Commoner Call cartoon and commentary by Mark L. Taylor, 2017. Open source and free to use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )