What's with the asterisk

[rockymountaindem]

After Dubya's name? I think it's from the Doonesbury comic strip. Am I right?

[Davis_X_Machina]

1. Baseball reference...

The asterisk supposedly came into being 40 years ago when Maris became the first player to surpass the most famous American sports record of the past century, Babe Ruth's 60 home runs in one season.

The asterisk was supposed to accompany Roger Maris' name into the record books to indicate that Maris had broken the record over a 162-game span instead of the 154 schedule that Ruth played.


The thesis is that Bush's presidency is similarly tainted.

[DUreader]

8. No it is a quotation from a dissenting opinion in Bush v Gore

I forget which Justice wrote it.

[mike1963]

2. No, Doonesbury got in after the original act: It's because Shrub will

always have an * next to his name because he wasn't actually elected.
(lost popular vote, selected by USSC)so will always have a 'footnote' attached.

Nixon has one, being the only POTUS to resign, and hopefully * will have two, maybe, as the only one charged with war crimes...
We shall see.

[DUreader]

9. Correct, but see reply 8 as to the origin

[are_we_united_yet]

11. And he's a lower case asterisk at that eom

[HereSince1628]

3. Must be something wrong with your computer...

:evilgrin:

[UTUSN]

4. If You Want to Know About *, You Need to Know abt "Tweety"

(oldtimers will give me a pass, or perhaps not)

During Campaign 2000 the media whores were swooning over the nicknames Shrub was giving some of them. Media Whores Online ran a contest to nickname Chris-the-Whore. In the first 3 or so weeks, there was no clear, catchy front runner, with "The Screamer" sort of leading. Then one of The Whore's own Hardball staff LEAKED to MWO that his own staff called him Tweety because of the Clairol shade he favored. This was immediately declared the winner. But in some quarters, it wasn't entirely satisfactory. For one thing, by the time it was declared, the shade had changed to platinum, leading to a suggestion he be called Carole LOMBARD. Plus, "Tweety" sounds too affectionate towards this JERK WHORE. Then M-TV held it's 20th or 25th or whatever anniversary, and all the cable whores were doing segments of Brittany shedding her duds down to almost nothing. Not to be left behind in any whore game, Tweety followed suit, with a guest from Time Mag, the young humor columnist, whassisname Joel STEIN. The staff kept re-running the Britany clip, and Tweety was clearly DROOLING disgustingly. The Time dude said, "You're beginning to creep me out." Tweety responded, "Yeah, well, wait till YOU're 50." This led to the suggestion that "Tweety" be modified to "Tweezer" to retain the hair reference while canceling out the affection factor and also adding the (dirty old) "geezer" angle.

Just to round out the Tweety portrait: 1- He is our enemy. 2- The last time he was identifiably a Democrat was circa 1988 when his book, Hardball, was first published. 3- He's a political flunky who worships SUCCESS, and started "turning" through admiration for RAYGUN's kicking his Dem bosses' rears. 4- He was ABSOLUTELY VICIOUS to President GORE all through Campaign 2000. 5- He triggered a gun incident by naming, ERRONEOUSLY, Kathleen WILLEY's supposed "jogger" (Pat BUCHANAN's mentally ill brother took the gun to the house). 6- He is a de facto wingnut operative. 7- He voted for Shrub.

[ochazuke]

6. Somehow, I knew that Tweety was Chris Matthews

from the first time I had ever seen him called that in print, without any hints from the context. There must be some subliminal or unconcious connection there.

[onecitizen]

10. Wow.........

I knew a lot of that but not all. Esp. the part about Buchanan and Kathleen Willey.

[BeatleBoot]

5. * is a Sissy

Anyone who has to lie to the American people during the State of the Union Address about going to War is a big sissy.

A real big sissy.

[wuushew]

7. It could also be the first step to remove the name Bush from English

much like the car-touche of the Pharaoh Hatshepsut was removed from monuments by Thutmose III. Hatshepsut was a good Pharaoh so no bashing please

Bush has become a vile word just use * and play it safe.

[rockymountaindem]

12. Thanks everyone...

As a baseball fan I can truly appreciate the * next to Maris' name and I hope to see one next to Bush's name in all the record books for years to come. The thing about "tweety" is all too true. No wonder he still has a job on cable news.

[Samantha]

13. See Post 19 for the origin of use of the Bush* here at DU

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=788095

[psychopomp]

14. I can't even type that name

I'll stick to Dumbya, Shrub, or just plain *

[Zomby Woof]

15. I suggested it in June of 2002

Independent of either Doonesbury (who was using a cowboy hat icon at the time), or any other DUer.

See this link: http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/06/29_asterisk.html