The Daily Telegraph

I hope the American public lives up to the example set by Lisa Simpson

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Atit deserves a tat. So it was that, at the end of Donald Trump’s chest-beating address about how Americans carved the greatest republic in the history of the universe out of the bare, savage rock of an empty frontier (uh, except for the Native Americans), House speaker Nancy Pelosi unsmilingl­y tore up her copy of the speech.

Tit duly followed tat. Secretary of state Mike Pompeo mocked Ms Pelosi by posting a picture of Lisa Simpson, the cartoon character, sobbing pathetical­ly as she tore up her own patriotic speech in an episode aired back in 1991. With depressing predictabi­lity, the actress who voices Lisa then betrayed her own tit-ish qualities by declaring, in response: “F--- you, Pompeo, for co-opting my character.” A producer of The Simpsons joined the pile-on by demanding that Pompeo never “ever ever ever” again use the cartoon’s material.

Beyond the thought that the whole lot of them were an unbearable bunch of tits, my main annoyance was that Lisa, the girly swot of the cartoon that I watched avidly as a child and obviously the character to whom I most related, had been maligned again. She wasn’t sobbing out of frailty in that episode, as Mr Pompeo implied, but in anger, after witnessing a congressma­n taking a bribe.

She soon gets the guy jailed for corruption because, unlike now, the Nineties were a time for idealism.

Mr Trump, on the other

My main annoyance was that Lisa, the girly swot, had been maligned again

hand, was acquitted this week. Instead, it now falls to the American public to pass judgment on their president in the autumn, and I hope it is a harsh one.

Unfortunat­ely, judging by the front-runners of the first Democratic caucus this week, US voters have another truly unappetisi­ng choice ahead.

 ??  ?? Principled and patriotic: Lisa Simpson, the cartoon character, tore up her speech in a 1991 episode in protest at a congressma­n taking a bribe
Principled and patriotic: Lisa Simpson, the cartoon character, tore up her speech in a 1991 episode in protest at a congressma­n taking a bribe

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