A Charlie Brown Christmas

Previously in Liberality for All: a shrill diatribe about the totemistic importance of the American flag coupled with some snotty revisionist nostalgia about the nine-eleven made it really hard for me to work up the energy to snark or to do anything, really, other than wonder why I thought it was a bad thing that these goddamn comics had been essentially cancelled for so long. I had no fun, and you had no fun, and that’s just the way the world is. Oh, and the kid named after Ronald Reagan stole an eagle and then bumped into Sean Hannity and G. Gordon Liddy.

The good news is, today’s chapter drops the stridency and picks up Teh Uber-Crazy in a big way.

In the Unity Tower: Ambassador Osama bin Laden is informed that “the situation is under control.” The ambassador sniffs that the riots outside came on rather suddenly for being “under control,” and Secretary-General Jacques Chirac (oh, I’d forgotten about that! Mike Mackey, you so silly!) assures him that Commander Hissler will deal with things. Hey, Commander Hissler! I remember him! That guy was awesome!

Except, for some damn reason, he’s been smoothed out a bit and his hair’s more red now, which completely spoils the whole Aryanism angle.

Oh, Hissler! You’re such a goofy cartoon of evil. I think I’m in love with you a little bit.

Bin Laden huffs and puffs that Chirac promised that his address would be seen worldwide. Man alive, bin Laden is a bit of a whinger, isn’t he? Maybe that’s why he oversees an international terrorist organization: he’s a whiny-ass titty baby who needs the attention. In which case the current White House strategy of completely forgetting that he even exists is a stroke of brilliance.

Chirac responds with a little speech that is so powerfully at the center of everything that makes LFA endearingly idiotic (as opposed to CyberSean Hannity and G. Gordon Liddy, Nanite Lord, who are at the center of everything that makes LFA unbelievably gaudy) that I simply must reproduce it in all its glory (click to expand):

A few days back, Brad at Sadly, No! observed that wingnuts like to think that everything they hate is rolled up into one neat package, and while Mackey isn’t quite a wingnut (he’s more of a black-helicopters-hide-the-guns psycho-libertarian survivalist type, I think), Liberality for All has that characteristic in spades. We hate the UN, we hate Muslims, we hate the French, and we really hate Al Gore – so clearly they are all conspiring together! Or sumthin’ like that. I swear, as hard as it is for me to spend a couple hours at a go with Mackey’s thoughts, I can’t begin to imagine what it must be like to live inside his head always.

Let us not forget, that “young woman” is none other than Chelsea Clinton. I still can’t get my head around that one, even though I know it’s just because her eventual turn to conservatism is going to be the series’ big climatic “fuck you hahaha!” to the Clinton-style Left.

Hissler, the big bad German enforcer, promises that the audience will be filled with bin Laden’s supporters, and the conservative protesters will be deliberately kept out of frame. Oh. Well, that’s disappointingly low-key. Bin Laden has a dramatically ironic moment where he assures Chirac and Hissler that he’s sure that his message will be heard, and we are reminded that he has a suitcase nuke, because after becoming the most important figure in the world, or whatever the hell he is, he would totally need to resort to a suitcase nuke to take out the UN. Which is something that’s been tugging at my mind throughout: if bin Laden’s plan is to destroy the UN, doesn’t that make him the hero?

Norscar returns to the super secret conservative heroes underground magic fort, and confirms what the perceptive among us already knew: he is playing the UN. Because Muslim or no, nobody can turn back to the dark side once they have drunk of the heady musk of Sean Hannity. Liddy makes a painfully unfunny joke about the UN, and then…

Oh, gods…

This is what makes this all worthwhile. The chance to share with you, my dear readers who I love, an image of such breathtaking “WTF? Seriously, WTF?” inanity that even I can hardly believe it exists, that any one human mind could come up with something this balls-out surreal. I give you: Blind Ollie North and a dying eagle hooked together on a brain-swapping machine.

While they all pseudo-exposition about saving the eagle, saving the world, Diana the Objectified Hot Christian Catsuit Chick mopes that she doesn’t have a pet, in a really tortured bit of dialogue. Then she apologises to Marty the dog, in a really tortured bit of dialogue. Then Marty growls at her, and Sean yells at him; in a really tortured bit of dialogue, Sean wonders what is bothering the dog. This is all to obvious to not Mean Something, and my guess is: Hissler knows that Norscar is a double agent, and Diana, that bitch, is the actual spy, because women are bitches. I mean, Mackey’s a really nice guy, so why won’t any women ever talk to him. Bitches.

Reagan stands over Freedom the eagle, being extremely tedious. Blind Ollie recognises his voice, and correctly identifies him as Reagen McGee, “that kid from Franklin Square.” He exposits that Reagan received the last college scholarship from the Freedom Alliance before they were closed by the IRS (hey, I missed you, Weirdly Formatted Lettering! Welcome back!), and that Reagan was the last person Very Nearly Blind Ollie ever saw. Does that mean that we’re about to follow last issues Liddyback with a Northback? Of course it does!

Franklin Square, a couple of years ago: that luxurious “rough texture” that so cleverly means “flashback in the LFA vocabulary lies over the image of a man with a cane knocking on a suburban door. Everything is very brown as the door opens to reveal Mama Reagan, looking nothing like she has previously looked. The conversation that ensues is so remarkably stiff that if it were in a movie, you would assume that the actors were reading from cue cards which were just then being written:

VNBO: “I am Oliver North. Is your son home?”

MR: “Oh, Colonel North. Thank you so much. He’s not here. He has joined a group called the Patriots. He said he had something urgent to do today.”

VNBO: Patriots. Yeah, I’ve heard of them…sweet kids!”

MR: “Well, sometimes I wonder. Would you like his cell number?

VNBO: “Yes, that will do nicely.”

I picture the delivery as somewhere between CATS from “All Your Base” and Sally Brown’s ineffable “All I want is my fair share. All I want is what’s coming to me.” Basically, imagine the voice that would accompany this face-

-and you’re pretty much there. VNB Ollie calls Norscar, asking him to triangulate a cell number as he walks away.

The warehouse district, and the Patriots are buying somethings from a gang…Jesus. Okay, so first, here’s what the gang leader looks like:

Second, although clearly a biker version of John Lennon, he is meant to be Latin American. We know this because he talks about coming from Central America, and he speaks a little Spanish. With that in mind, what do you think this gang is called? Would you guess, “The Gringos?” Dear God Almighty, I hope that’s not what you guessed. But if you did guess that, then you guessed correctly.

Ollie approaches them secretly, and is terribly sad to overhear talk of a “shipment” and “sample the material” and “bundles from Colombia” and “illegal product” and “customers will be flying high.” I list these only so that when the reveal comes of what they actually purchased, you will agree with me that the writer did not, perhaps, play altogether fair.

Back in 2021: Ollie starts writhing, and the neural nanite link between man and bird technobabbles into the technobabble. CyberSean worries over Ollie, Reagan worries over Freedom, and-

Whoa, that was fast, back to the flashback. The Patriots and the Gringos hang out chatting, waiting for the UN enforcers to show up, and when they do, Reagan, in the finest neocon tradition, runs and hides behinds some barrels. And this, apparently is the exact perfect time for some narration that has not one tiny goddamn of significance to the goings-on: apparently back on 9/11/01, Reagan’s mother flipped her shit because some dude was washing his car. Apparently she still flips her shit about it, all these years later, and damn that fellow-travelling liberal islamocomminazi for having the temerity to wash his car! Why, he might as well just perform abortions in the mall parking lot! Imagine, seeking normalcy on the day that all of America just wished would turn into a bad dream! COMMIE!

While Reagan tells us this extremely pointless, I mean, patriotically enlightening story, VNB Ollie tears open one of the packages. What he sees brings a tear to his eyes, it does: the patriots weren’t smuggling drugs, they were smuggling flagses!!! Godbless the USofA!!!one!

(Narration included because I am a mean dick).

Reagan wanders over to VNB Ollie, and says that flags are getting harder and harder to smuggle, because of their UN designation as symbols of repression, which doesn’t actually make sense, and it makes less sense the more you try to puzzle it out. A propos of nothing, he then blurts out “It’s like we’re fighting a war against liberalism.” “That is why I am here,” replies Ollie, “to send you to the front line. You’re going to college, son.” “Wow, thanks!” says Reagan.

Jesus Christ. Lordy.

So, um, that totally sucks that the IRS shut down such a deeply philanthropic organization, I mean, man.

And eliminationist rhetoric, that’s cool. I mean, WHO DOESN’T love eliminationist rhetoric? I sure as hell do! Gets the blood pumping!

Jesus. That’s just…Jeeesus.

I love this fucking comic.