Democratic Comeback Joke: What Do You Think?

[trynotto_giveuphope]

Hi all,

I posted this earlier today. A (Republican) colleague at work sent me the following joke this morning, which I've heard variations before:

I'm reminded of the time that Catherine - a little girl in our neighborhood
told me that she wanted to be President one day. Both of her
parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there with us - and I asked
Catherine - "If you were President, what would be the first
thing you would do?"

Catherine replied - "I would give houses to all the homeless people."

"Wow, what a worthy goal you have there Catherine." I told her (while both
parents beamed), "but, you don't have to wait until you're President
to do that. You can come over to my house and clean up all the dog
poop in the back yard and I will pay you $5 dollars. Then we can go
over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you
can give him the $5 dollars to use for a new house."

Catherine (who was about 4) thought that over for a second, and then replied,
"Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and clean up the dog poop
himself, and you can pay him the $5 dollars."

Welcome to the Republican Party, Catherine.

So, during my downtime at work today, I've been trying to come up with a Democratic version of this joke, to use as a retort the next time I hear it. Here's what I've come up with so far. Tell me what you think:


Charlie had been raised in a staunch Republican household so he knew the value of hard work. One day, his friend Bobby came running outside with a shovel and yelled to his friend Charlie, "Hey Charlie! My Mom says she'll pay me 10 bucks to clean all the dog poop in the backyard! You wanna help?"

"Sure!" said Charlie.

"Here. You take the shovel and I'll find the dog poop."

"Shouldn't we both shovel?" asked Charlie.

"OK. You shovel the first two poops and then I'll shovel the next two."

After searching the whole yard, they found two dog poops and Charlie shoveled them both.

"I guess that's all the poop there is," admitted Bobby. "I'll go get our money."

He came back with his Mom who looked around and saw there was no more dog poop. "Good work," she told Bobby. "Here's ten dollars."

Bobby took the money and handed one of the dollars to Charlie.

"A dollar? But I shoveled all the poop! You just pointed at it! I should get half the money, at least!"

"It was my shovel!" retorted Bobby happily.

"But I did all the work!" Charlie hollered back.

At this, Bobby's Mom piped up, "Charlie, you do realize that I told Bobby I'd pay him 10 dollars. It's up to Bobby how much he's going to pay you."

Charlie thought about it and finally decided, "That's still not fair."

Charlie's Mom smiled and patted him on the head. "Welcome to the Democratic Party."


So? Do you think it works? Anybody have anything better?

Thanks!

[applegrove]

1. I like it.

[redqueen]

2. Well done.

Not that it'll help. Most of those $#&@*($s are brain dead from greed / selfishness.

[SteppingRazor]

3. Very similar joke sent to me. Here's what I sent back:

First, the original:

Father-Daughter Talk
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age, she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and was very much in favor of the redistribution of wealth. She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed. Based on the lectures that she had participated in, and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt that her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded by asking how she was doing in school. Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain, insisting that she was taking a very difficult course load and was constantly studying, which left her no time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn't even have time for a boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends because she spent all her time studying. Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?"

She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by. All she takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus; college for her is a blast. She's always invited to all the parties, and lots of times she doesn't even show up for classes because she's too hung over."

Her wise father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair! I have worked really hard for my grades! I've invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played while I worked my tail off!"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, " Welcome to the Republican party."



***************************************************

And, my response:

"How 'bout I do a little rewriting?"

... Her father listened and then asked, "How is your friend Audrey doing?"

She replied, "Audrey's barely getting by. She has to work three jobs just to afford tuition, so she has no time to study. And even when she does, she has a tough time, what with the brain damage she got as a kid from living over that Superfund site that was supposed to be cleaned up until the Superfund program got defunded. And, of course, she also has those three kids to feed — I only wish she had learned about sensible birth control instead of that abstinence-only stuff. Hell, Dad, she'll probably have to drop out soon."

Her "wise" father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA."

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's suggestion, angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be fair! I have worked really hard for my grades! However, I do think that, if we just offered better funding for college tuition to people like Audrey, maybe she'd be able to stay in school. It's just a tragedy that, year after year, Pell grants and student loans continue to shrink in our national budget. Poor Audrey ... and by the way, Dad, I see where you're going with this, and it's a god-awful, horrible analogy. Jesus, Dad, I knew you were a greedy swine, but I had no idea that your lack of empathy ran so deep. Are you sure I'm not adopted?

"And besides, comparing my one-on-one grades with poor Audrey isn't the same as looking at the national budget that we all contribute to, and how it's divided. Why would you lie to me by trying to compare the two as if they were the same? Why, Daddy? Why?"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently, "Welcome to the Republican party."

[XemaSab]

8. Brilliant rebuttal!

:D

[jmowreader]

4. Well, I have Catherine's rebuttal...

Charlie offered my daughter Catherine, who feels sorry for the homeless, five dollars to clean up the dog shit in his back yard, then offered to take her downtown to Fred the homeless man so she could give him the five dollars.

"But why don't we hire Fred to clean up the dog shit, and give him the five dollars directly?"

'Welcome to the Republican Party, Catherine.'

Catherine thought for a minute, then said, "no, that's not how a Republican would get the job done."

'How so? Republicans love the value of hard work.'

"Mr. Jones, a Republican would first ask all of his rich friends to bid on a contract for cleaning up your yard."

'Yes, he would do that. Then what would he do?'

"Then he'd decide which of his friends would give him the most money back under the table, and award the contract to him."

'Would my yard then get cleaned up?'

"No. The friend would read the bid packets, find the person who submitted the lowest bid, and give him a subcontract to clean your yard."

'And my yard would get cleaned up then, right?'

"No, sir. The person who subcontracted it would realize he can't clean your yard for the money he bid, and submit a contract modification request. You'd grant this because the shit would just keep piling up."

'Would someone clean my yard then?'

"Not yet. First there'd have to be a re-inspection of the property. They'd find out you issued a contract to clean a yard of 1500 square feet, but your yard is actually 1505 square feet. They'd declare you in breach of contract and keep all your money."

'So I'd lose all my money and still have dog poop in my back yard?'

"It's not just that. The company who declared you in breach of contract is more than willing to reopen the contract, provided you pay them a 30 percent fine and sign a six-month contract extension."

'Thirty percent! I'd just cancel the contract altogether!'

"You couldn't do that because there's a premature cancellation clause on page 742 of the contract you never read because it's written in Russian--if you cancel the contract before the service was performed they would fine you 75 percent of the contract's value."

'I see. So I pay the thirty percent, and someone comes over to pick up the dog shit?'

"No. No one ever comes over to pick up the shit. See, while all this was going on we had six days of nonstop rain, and all the dog shit dissolved and soaked into the ground. The liquid shit killed all your grass, but you can issue a contract next spring to have them plant some more."

'So what did I really pay for?'

"They decided to make sure you would never have to have dog shit picked up from your yard ever again."

'And how did they do that? Did they put a robot in my yard to scoop it up?'

"No, they called Animal Control and said they saw your dog foaming at the mouth. Someone came over and put your dog to sleep for you. But they left the carcass in your yard, because their contract clearly states they were hired to pick up dog crap, not dead dogs."

'So what do I do with my dog?'

"You can apply for a contract variance if you pay a 62 percent surcharge, but there'll be a non-negotiable $500 additional fee to cover the cost of hiring someone with a backhoe to dig a grave for your dog."

'My dog isn't very big. Why do I need to hire a backhoe to bury him?'

"Because the contracting officer's brother owns a backhoe, and he can't get jobs any other way because he can't drive it very well."

'Hey, now wait a minute. I didn't want all this contracting garbage, or surcharges, reevaluations and fines. And I definitely don't want my dog killed. All I want is to just pay someone five dollars and have them go around my yard with a sack and pick up all the dog shit.'

Catherine smiled. "Welcome to the Democratic Party."

[Bucky]

5. It's a little too complicated to be a good joke.

The Republican Party joke works better because it's actually funny. Try shortening the joke, change the setting to Abu Ghraib and replace the word "poop" with "naked pyramid of humiliated foriegners who will now hate our people for the rest of their lives" and the word "$10" with "billion dollar no-bid contract."

See if it doesn't work better then.

[YDogg]

6. these make my head hurt

[madeline_con]

7. I like the Repug version better.

Less exploitation. I'm just sayin'.