What, Hillary Worry?

(National Review Online)  This column was written by Edward Morrissey.

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Hillary Clinton made headlines earlier this week when she compared President George W. Bush to Mad magazine's Alfred E. Neuman, the gap-toothed, freckle-faced mascot whose signature statement is "What, me worry?" As political put-downs go, this hardly ranks as the most egregious, even in the modern era of politics. Fellow Democratic Senator Harry Reid called Bush both a liar and a loser earlier this year, and later only grudgingly offered to retract the latter. The American left, exemplified by MoveOn.org, has compared Bush to Adolf Hitler -- unfavorably. Howard Dean has spent his entire term as Democratic party chairman issuing insults to and about Republicans, explicitly declaring that they have never done an honest day's work in their lives and that the GOP is entirely comprised of unfriendly white Christians. Even as an insult to Bush's physical looks, Sen. Clinton's comparison pales to the usual references to chimpanzees that the Left has beaten to death.

Still, the Mad magazine comparison is significant and revealing. I grew up reading Mad, with its iconoclastic attitude and broad-based satirical outlook. The magazine existed in part to challenge authority and to skewer the self-righteous. Year ago, "authority" meant the establishment, mostly conservative, and the magazine's barbs were aimed more at stodgy Republicans than free-wheeling liberals and Democrats. But Mad also regularly scored points against the excesses of the counterculture, too.

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