Joe the Plumber used to be satire

If you haven’t seen this one, you’re even farther out of the loop than I am.

LIMA, OH — Roy Shybinski, an uneducated 33-year-old forklift operator from Lima, is making final preparations for his national radio address tomorrow on The Rush Limbaugh Show. Shybinski, who has been “waiting a long time to speak my mind” … will speak to an expected audience of 32 million when he calls Limbaugh’s radio program shortly after 1 p.m. EST.

Now, if you’re wondering what that means—

—that was from 1993.

Mitt Romney: No freakin’ way!

No.

Really?

Oh, come on. Seriously?

Every once in a while, you come across something that you don’t want to believe is true. Neil Swidey and Stephanie Ebbert, from their Boston Globe profile of GOP presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney:

Before beginning the drive, Mitt Romney put Seamus, the family’s hulking Irish setter, in a dog carrier and attached it to the station wagon’s roof rack. He’d built a windshield for the carrier, to make the ride more comfortable for the dog ….

…. As the oldest son, Tagg Romney commandeered the way-back of the wagon, keeping his eyes fixed out the rear window, where he glimpsed the first sign of trouble. “Dad!” he yelled. “Gross!” A brown liquid was dripping down the back window, payback from an Irish setter who’d been riding on the roof in the wind for hours.

As the rest of the boys joined in the howls of disgust, Romney coolly pulled off the highway and into a service station. There, he borrowed a hose, washed down Seamus and the car, then hopped back onto the highway. It was a tiny preview of a trait he would grow famous for in business: emotion-free crisis management.

What? What punch line can I write here? Wonkette’s Ken Layne came up with the obvious. In fact, two obvious ones.

• • •

And while I’m still on the subject of Wonkette and Ken Layne, I really do want to stress that I have nothing against him (so far); sometimes jokes miss.

But the folks over at Wonkette are more diligent than I, so I owe them at least that acknowledgment. I mean, really, I wouldn’t have noticed the “vanilla steamer” bit.

Someone needs to be obsessed with Mitt Romney’s homoerotic correlations. Thanks, Ken.

What? It’s a funny picture.

Over at Wonkette, Ken Layne was apparently trying to be funny.  And, apparently, he can be from time to time.  (I’m not a regular Wonkette reader.)

As the nation slips into a new “Not So Great Depression,” Republicans are embracing a new kind of Compassionate Conservatism that should appeal to poverty-stricken people who’ve lost their homes, jobs and traditional abhorrence of homosexuality and pedophilia. Leading the new effort is Wisconsin Republican leader and Brown County GOP Chairman Donald Fleischman, currently facing charges of child enticement, contributing to the delinquency of a child and exposing himself to a child — all because he (allegedly) wanted to show his love to a runaway boy!

It’s not the worst, but it’s not much, either.  My point isn’t to bash Layne’s writing; I haven’t read enough of it.  But I needed a disclaimer for pointing you to the article.  After all, it’s the graphic that makes the trip worth it: