Via email: Underground cartoon sniper Jim Treacher follows up his editorial work on a typically sneering Rall scribble with a riposte to a typically sneering Teddy posting (‘tseems Teddy scans the message boards looking for references to himself, then responds!; how long before he discovers the job bloggers are doing on him…?). Jim writes:

In a recent message board conversation , Mr. Rall indulged in his usual habit for labeling anyone who disagrees with him on any topic as a “right-winger.” Someone named Paul Mason asked him the following:

“Perhaps Mr. Rall could prepare a ten question quiz focusing on political identity and post it here. We could all post our answers & he could grade them. He could then determine which of us are right-wing, left-wing, or centrists. I’ll have no way else of knowing where my political allegiances stand otherwise.”

Ted’s response:

1. Did you vote for George W. Bush in the last election?

2. Do you believe that George W. Bush is the legitimately-elected President of the United States?

3. Do you favor the imposition of a flat tax?

4. Are you tired of all the “special privileges” that minorities enjoy under affirmative action?

5. Do you favor limits on damage awards in civil lawsuits?

6. Do you agree with the current US involvement in Afghanistan?

7. Did you vote, or would you have voted, for Ronald Reagan, George Bush I or Richard Nixon?

8. Do you believe that ethnic profiling is ever appropriate?

9. Do you think it is inappropriate to criticize the President during wartime?

10. Do you believe that Microsoft should not be broken up?

If you answered “yes” to 3 or more questions above, you are a right-winger. To 2 questions, you are a conservative. To 1, you are a Republican. Thank you for playing.

And my response:

1. Do you think Santa Claus is trying to kill you?¹

2. Do you think vomit is a deadly weapon?²

3. Do you think suing people is “punk” because John Lydon does it?³

4. Do you draw Osama Bin Laden with two sets of eyes?

5. When you draw a hand coming out of a shirtsleeve, does it look like the shirtsleeve is exploding?

6. Are you willing to exploit the murder of Western journalists to drum up sales for your books?

7. Do you check newsgroups and weblogs to see if you’re being “stalked”?

8. Do you think that 9/11 was secretly orchestrated to help us forget that Bush stole the presidency?

9. Have you ever exaggerated or fabricated events in your life to make your

“autobiographical” work seem more interesting?

10. Have you ever been booed on national television for derailing a serious discussion of how to prevent prejudice against Arab-Americans?

If you answered “yes” to all of the above, that Pulitzer was rightfully yours.

Thanks, Jim.

…Poor Ted. 37-years old and already a reviled, ‘toonish punchline…

And wait, he won a freakin’ Pulitzer…?

¹The stuff about thinking Santa wants to kill him and claiming vomit is a deadly weapon, that’s not just random stuff to make him sound like a nut. Recently, somebody on Usenet made a “Dear Santa” joke, asking Santa to have Rall killed while he was in Afghanistan. Rall saw the post and told the guy he’d forwarded the “threat” to the “proper authorities.”

²And a while back, Danny Hellman made a joke about offering a $50 bounty for anybody who’d puke on Rall’s car. Neither joke was particularly funny or smart, really, but they weren’t death threats either.

³And Rall really did say the stuff about how it’s “punk” to go to court since Johnny Rotten did it.