January 30, 2018

"Now all the authorities/They just stand around and boast/ How they blackmailed the sergeant-at-arms/Into leaving his post..."

A line from Bob Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues."

Which is what I thought of when I read (at CNN)...
A typo on some of the tickets issued for President Donald Trump's first State of the Union address to Congress Tuesday provided invitees a welcome to the "State of the Uniom." The tickets, which are issued by the Office of the Sergeant at Arms and Doorkeeper, are provided for spouses and guests of members of Congress and give access to seats in the gallery.....
But some comedians are making jokes like....

... as if the tickets came from the executive branch. So who needs remedial education?

82 comments:

Tim said...

Greatest idea for the SOTU speech tonight:

SOTU BINGO!!!

Materials needed:

Paper, blocked off in 15 squares.
A list of items that will make leftist heads explode (14 items)
As many shot glasses as you can scrounge.
a fifth of your favorite swill.

Instructions:

Make up the card with the items penciled in all blocks except the center one (Bingo!)
place full shot glass beside the card. as items come up, empty it appropriately and use as a bingo marker.
If you don't have enough glasses, you may use a quarter as your marker after you empty the shot (No Cheating!)
Have a phone with 911 on speed dial to avoid alcohol poisoning.

Bay Area Guy said...

The "Get Trump" is dogged and merciless. Not even a typo can get passed them. #resistpoorgrammar!

Fernandinande said...

The State of the Uniom is Bigly Covfefe.

Maybe Trump will surpass Billy S. for the number of new words introduced into the lingo.

traditionalguy said...

Ah, ha, Maybe it's another conspiracy to secede from the Union. That Sergeant at Arms could be from Mexifornia

Ignorance is Bliss said...

So who needs remedial education?

I suspect much of the voting public, and the large majority of the media.

Having said that, it is entirely possible that the Office of the Sargent-at-Arms simply prints the tickets based on a file provided by someone in the executive branch.

Wince said...

Are you sure this isn't some kind of parody taken from the pages of the Oniom?

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Tim Gilliland said...

Paper, blocked off in 15 squares.

Sounds like someone needs remedial math...

Curious George said...

I believe that from Austrian it translates to Uniom.

steve uhr said...

It's called a joke.

rehajm said...

Catalan, Finnish, Polish... take your pick. That will bring us back to do oh oh oh...

Tim said...


1/30/18, 8:03 AM



Blogger Ignorance is Bliss said...
Tim Gilliland said...

Paper, blocked off in 15 squares.

Sounds like someone needs remedial math

hmm. I was going for 5 across and 3 down... mostly because I was afraid that drinking 25 shots in under 2 hours would kill a mortal man like you, and I didn't want that on my conscience.
You didn't REALLY expect to spell BINGO now did you?

Mr. Groovington said...

Dylan. What a wanker.

Carol said...

Not even a typo can get passed them. #resistpoorgrammar!

I see what you did there.

rhhardin said...

m is a labial, n is a dental.

tcrosse said...

"President Donald J. Trump" is an obvious misprint. Everybody knows he lost the Popular Vote.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

rhhardin said...

m is a labial, n is a dental.

Damn it, rhhardin! Do you know how many years of therapy it took me to get that image out of my mind the first time?

damikesc said...

I'd argue that this can, in no way, be blamed on the Executive branch. Trump cannot speak there without Congressional approval. This is the fault of the illiterates who run Congress.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Odds are the printer has a diploma from a public high school in NYC or California.

Big Mike said...

Probably printed by someone who went to school during the “Clinton the education president” administration.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

For the first time in history, covfefe will be served, it’ll set a president.

chickelit said...

Odds are the typo culprit is a local deep stater and not a merit hire.

tim in vermont said...

It was probably caused by the delirium that it was not Hillary giving the address.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

“In December 2016, Trump tweeted: “China steals United States Navy research drone in international waters – rips it out of water and takes it to China in unpresidented act.”

In case the dumb monkey doesn’t know what I’m referrring to.

tim in vermont said...

Yeah, it would be worth the higher unemployment, more expensive gas and heating oil, lower 401Ks, all of it, to have a president whose tweets were all professionally composed.

I wonder what professional wrote “We came! We saw! He died! Chortle... guffaw!”

Oh that’s right, it was Sidney Blumenthal! Good times, good times.. I miss those days NOT.

tim in vermont said...

I wonder who wrote “Deny, deny, deny” for Bill Clinton.

chickelit said...

@Steve Uhr at 8:07

Oh I get it. You want to laugh along with the President instead of at the President.

Chuck said...

Haha. Good post, Althouse. Great response to a cheap shot at Betsy DeVos.

AllenS said...

EDH said...
Are you sure this isn't some kind of parody taken from the pages of the Oniom?

Well played.

tim in vermont said...

Since the commentariat has been under discussion that past day or so, I am going to call out Chuck as one of the better commenters here. Even if he has diagnosed me as “mentally unstable and potentially dangerous.”

It told that one to my shrink and he laughed out loud, then he wrote something down and held his pad so I couldn’t see it.

tim in vermont said...

Then he laughed again, but sort of nervously.

Matt Sablan said...

Isn't it weird that the comedian's first instinct wasn't to insult Trump or the person in charge, but to target a woman as being too dumb to be in politics?

glenn said...

What’s the point of twittering if you can’t sideswipe Trump?

Henry said...

I'd like to hear Trump's State of the Uniom Address to the Covfefe of the United States.

I'm not going to bother with the the dog and pony show that is the State of the Union.

Henry said...

Not even Trump can rescue it from tedium and inanity.

Triangle Man said...

Too dumb to be in politics? There's no such thing.

tim in vermont said...

I like to imagine the coruscating Twitter feed that would have been Hillary’s as POTUS.

BTW, thanks for that word Althouse, it needs to come back!

AlbertAnonymous said...

Wasn't it Bush the Elder's administration when the media exploded because the 1990 ? diplomas at Annapolis said "Navel Academy" oops

BarrySanders20 said...

Uniom reminds me of euonym and my all-time favorite spelling bee person. This kid rocks it with enthusiasm in a cynical world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6ep8KOR284

Sebastian said...

"Now all the authorities/They just stand around and boast/ How they blackmailed the sergeant-at-arms/Into leaving his post..."

Give that man a Nobel.

Anyway, we are being patronized by our inferiors, even about spelling.

Yancey Ward said...

I was going to point it out myself, but Matthew Sablan beat me to it:

"Isn't it weird that the comedian's first instinct wasn't to insult Trump or the person in charge, but to target a woman as being too dumb to be in politics?"

It isn't weird, though- it is almost expected from the left.

CWJ said...

Are we to assume that the Obama years were without typos? Typos are common. A Trump administration is not. I suspect the urge to mock has nothing to do with the typo, and everything to do with the target(s).

n.n said...

N & M. Possible, if not probable.

Gahrie said...

Too dumb to be in politics? There's no such thing.

Pelosi, DWS and Hank Johnson prove this every day.

Chuck said...

Tim in Vermont said...
Since the commentariat has been under discussion that past day or so, I am going to call out Chuck as one of the better commenters here. Even if he has diagnosed me as “mentally unstable and potentially dangerous.”

I don't remember that and I'd be happy to let it go; but I have to say that I am curious as to what you wrote, to get me to write what you just now quoted.

TheDopeFromHope said...

Maxine "Mad Max" Waters is giving a rebuttal to the SOTU tonight on BET. What the over/under on how many times she says "scum" or "scumbag" and "impeach" or "impeachment"?

I setting scum/scumbag at 1.5 and impeach/impeachment at 6.5.

Place your bets and pass the popcorn!

steve uhr said...

The target was a women because the secretary of ed is a women. Education-- Spelling. If it was Rick Perry it wouldn't be funny. Are you guys really that dense?

Rick said...

Why must every single thread have to devolve into schoolyard taunts and insults? Isn’t the subject matter interesting enough for you folks? All it takes is the one instigator to start it. Just pathetic already. - Poser Inga

In case the dumb monkey doesn’t know what I’m referrring to. - Inga

Bad Lieutenant said...

steve uhr, when we do it, it's "HERESY!!! BURN THE WITCH!!!!!" When you do it, it's "aintchoo got no sensayuma?" I'd offer up my shocked face, but have to consider wear and tear.

Rick said...

steve uhr said...
It's called a joke.


It's not a joke, it's an insult. These sorts of insults are only effective when there's and underlying weakness to make fun of (as in Bush's malapropisms) so the currently topical reference (hook) is understood as a reference to that. In this case not only is there no underlying basis for the insult the hook to highlight the basis is simply wrong.

Are you guys really that dense?

It's not us who are dense, that term is better applied to the person supporting gratuitous insults.

Yancey Ward said...

Steve Uhr wrote:

The target was a women because the secretary of ed is a women. Education-- Spelling. If it was Rick Perry it wouldn't be funny. Are you guys really that dense?

Why was the Education Secretary singled out? Does Betsy DeVos have a history of misspellings or typos? Not that anyone has shown me, or I have found. Our point is this- if a woman hadn't been the Education Secretary, the author of the tweet would have likely shifted to the next woman in line in Trump's administration. Republican women are particular targets of ridicule as are African-American Republicans- the sort of ridicule that gets you called a sexist and a racist by the exact same people.

YoungHegelian said...

If you know anything about federal contracting, you know that Congress doesn't print these tickets themselves, & it's doubtful that they send something this trivial out to the Government Printing Office. More likely than not, a contract this small was a Small Business / Minority Business set-aside contract to some local print shop.

So, basically what has just happened here is that in order to make Trump look like an idiot for something that he had no hand in, a small or minority business owner is now getting his ass reamed out by the Senate Sergeant at Arms, & that owner will in turn wreak havoc on his typesetters back at the shop, most, if not all of whom, are minorities.

Thanks to the press & their imbecilic self-righteous indignation some unfortunate person of color probably got fired today.

Henry said...

Does Betsy DeVos have a history of misspellings or typos? Not that anyone has shown me, or I have found. Our point is this- if a woman hadn't been the Education Secretary, the author of the tweet would have likely shifted to the next woman in line in Trump's administration.

I don't know about that. DeVos is a particular target of the left because she supports school privatization. The leap from hatred of policy to hatred of person to accusations of stupidity is a simple combination of spite and confirmation bias. Because DeVos was nominated as Secretary of Education, the left focused its oppositional propaganda on her supposed lack of qualifications as an educator. Supposed lack of rudimentary spelling ability is a childish extension to that attack.

Likewise, Perry was attacked as unsuitable for department of energy because he's a proponent of fossil fuels. Rex Tillerson was attacked as unsuitable for state because Exxon does business in Russia, etc. etc.. The attacks are always opportunistic and always devolve toward crude namecalling.

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Chuck said...

Henry said...
"Does Betsy DeVos have a history of misspellings or typos? Not that anyone has shown me, or I have found. Our point is this- if a woman hadn't been the Education Secretary, the author of the tweet would have likely shifted to the next woman in line in Trump's administration."

I don't know about that. DeVos is a particular target of the left because she supports school privatization. The leap from hatred of policy to hatred of person to accusations of stupidity is a simple combination of spite and confirmation bias. Because DeVos was nominated as Secretary of Education, the left focused its oppositional propaganda on her supposed lack of qualifications as an educator. Supposed lack of rudimentary spelling ability is a childish extension to that attack.

Likewise, Perry was attacked as unsuitable for department of energy because he's a proponent of fossil fuels. Rex Tillerson was attacked as unsuitable for state because Exxon does business in Russia, etc. etc.. The attacks are always opportunistic and always devolve toward crude namecalling.

Great comment(s).

Betsy DeVos has NO history of misspellings, malapropisms, misspeaking, etc. She is almost always composed and polished, even though she's never been a campaigner, and never been elected to anything.

I would respectfully suggest that she is hated with particular fury on the left, on a scale apart from any other cabinet member including Rick Perry.

And it is because she hasn't been much of a office-holder with a track record of speeches and/or bill signings, but she's been a huge donor to conservative causes, and because she is a political weapon aimed squarely at one of the core constituencies of the Democratic Party, namely the teacher unions. She's a tough, hardball political player who was one of the most flawless performers as head of the Republican Party in Michigan, and a record of conservative activism in education all over the country. Democrats in Michigan and elsewhere h-a-t-e her.

FullMoon said...

steve uhr said...

The target was a women because the secretary of ed is a women. Education-- Spelling. If it was Rick Perry it wouldn't be funny. Are you guys really that dense?

1/30/18, 10:54 AM



Umm, guys, Steve made a joke. Are we all really that dense that we cannot see it? Why do serious?

Big Mike said...

Everyone understands that these tickets were composed and printed by union workers in the Government Publishing Office, right?

steve uhr said...

Gratuitous insults. Like trump telling McCabe to ask his wife what it feels like to be a loser? Is that gratuitous enough for you?

Henry said...

@Chuck -- I would respectfully suggest that she is hated with particular fury on the left, on a scale apart from any other cabinet member including Rick Perry.

I completely agree. I would add that her lack of (teaching) credentials was one of the main weapons used against her in her confirmation hearings. It's hardly surprising that a "lack of credentials" was quickly spun to imply "a lack of intelligence."

The other obvious female targets in the administration are Ivanka and Nicki Haley, and I don't think the spelling "joke" would have worked with either of them.

It would have be invoked against Dan Quayle, for obvious reasons.

Gahrie said...

I completely agree. I would add that her lack of (teaching) credentials was one of the main weapons used against her in her confirmation hearings.

I've never understood that. She wasn't being hired as a teacher, she was hired as an administrator.

Darrell said...

Gratuitous insults. Like trump telling McCabe to ask his wife what it feels like to be a loser? Is that gratuitous enough for you?

Because we all know that really happened because the NYT pulled that out of their ass yesterday to cover the coming Reckoning.

Gahrie said...

Gratuitous insults. Like trump telling McCabe to ask his wife what it feels like to be a loser? Is that gratuitous enough for you?

There was nothing gratuitous about Trump's insult....McCabe was a never Trumper who tried to stage a coup. Trump had good reason to insult him.

Rick said...

Is that gratuitous enough for you?

'I'm no different than Trump' is an odd defense for someone who hates Trump. Did you interpret Trump's comment as a joke?

So now you admit you're defending a Democrat for the exact things you claim to hate Trump for. What does this suggest about your evaluation process?

Jim at said...

I'm not going to bother with the the dog and pony show that is the State of the Union.

Yep. Last one I tried to watch was Clinton's in 1993.
Click.

I've got better things to do.

Matt Sablan said...

Do we know Trump insulted McCabe's wife?

Rick said...

[ if a woman hadn't been the Education Secretary, the author of the tweet would have likely shifted to the next woman in line in Trump's administration.]

I don't know about that.

I don't either. But I know with 100% certainty had the parties been reversed the left would have concluded it was due to bias.

Rule 4: Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.

I Callahan said...

I've got better things to do.

Hockey game on NBCSN tonight: Chicago at Nashville

Anonymous said...

I can't believe the posters who say they won't watch the SOTU address tonight. Not calling them liars, just that I can't understand not wanting to see what PDT has to say.

It's like they've never watched a PDT speech...full of entertainment value and American values. And the joy in trying to figure out which PDT statements will set off the left.
It has got to be interesting.

Bottom-line: You make the effort to comment here...but won't watch PDT's first SOTU?
That's like not watching the moon landing.

Anonymous said...

And yes, I will miss a hockey game to watch the speech tonight.
GO SHARKS!

Chuck said...

Matthew Sablan said...
Do we know Trump insulted McCabe's wife?

I know that I don't know! But NBC reported it, based upon multiple sources familiar with the call. I presume that McCabe told multiple people about it at the time, and some of them are leaking the story, and maybe NBC has a White House source who is also leaking/infirming the story. Maybe there is a recording, that sources have heard.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-s-gripes-against-mccabe-included-wife-s-politics-comey-n842161?cid=sm_npd_nn_tw_ma

One White House source denied it when asked by NBC. Denied it as a total fabrication.

But based on an extensive recent history, Matthew, I no longer believe much of anything that the White House or Trump say, about something like this. Do you believe any of their denials? Why?

Chuck said...

..."leaking/confirming the story"...

Is "infirming" even a word that spell-check would create?

Jupiter said...

Since no one else has mentioned it, Raul Grijalva is a disgusting object that should be carted away and disposed of.

Anonymous said...

Up-chuck said:
I no longer believe much of anything that the White House or Trump say


Wow, when you've lost Up-chuck.....

tcrosse said...

Livermoron said...
Up-chuck said:

Why you...you...you Instigator ! You're despicable !

Anonymous said...

I've always tried to live up to the standards set by Edward VIII, your avatar.

I call him Up(percase)-chuck to differentiate him from (lower-case)-chuck.

Just trying to help out here.

Ans isn't all about love, anyway?

P.S. I may be wrong about your avatar...he does seem to resemble the Duke of Windsor an awful lot.

Jeff Hall said...

Isn't Rep. Grijalva one of those exalted people --Congressmen-- who elect and are supposed to supervise the Sergeant at Arms? He has a lot of nerve making a nasty crack at anyone else --much less the Secretary of Education-- for his own House's typographical errors.

If we can't trust the House of Representatives to spell correctly, how can we trust them to write laws or balance the budget? It would be tragic if people stopped trusting Congressmen.

tcrosse said...

P.S. I may be wrong about your avatar...he does seem to resemble the Duke of Windsor an awful lot.

It's his brother, George VI, whom I chose for his resemblance to Fred Allen. We were both scolded yesterday, you for Up-chuck, me for Chuck U. Farley.

Anonymous said...

He does look like Fred Allen, Never noticed.

You are a very bad man, tcrosse.

Did you read that interchange a few days ago where what'shername yelled at me for using HER SOURCE to totally destroy her 'argument'.
Good times. Good times.

tcrosse said...

You are a very bad man, tcrosse.

Praise from Caesar is praise indeed.

Henry said...

Trump insulted McCabe's wife? What's next? Dogs and Cats living together!

Earnest Prole said...

Screw Washington; let's just pause a moment in honor of "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues," which on more days than not is my favorite Dylan song.

I started out on burgundy but soon hit the harder stuff
Everybody said they'd stand behind me when the game got rough
But the joke was on me, there was nobody even there to bluff
I'm going back to New York City, I do believe I've had enough

Earnest Prole said...

The lyrics, the phrasing, the great band's loose groove, the astounding saloon piano with thumbtacks on its hammers . . .

Will Cate said...

I took somebody to task (politely) on facebook for blaming "the administration" for this typo. So eager are the anti-trumpers to blame anything and everything on him.