July 21, 2004

GIANT GEORGE STORMS SPOKANE

Great timing from Ben & Jerry's founder Ben Cohen, who's just launched a Pants on Fire campaign intended to humiliate ... George W. Bush:

The co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream is on the road, towing a 12-foot-tall effigy of President Bush with fake flames shooting out of the pants.

Ben Cohen believes it is an acceptable way to point out what he calls the president's lies.

The Pants on Fire Tour rolled into Spokane on Tuesday.

Flame pants! Just what Sandy Berger needs. Much safer than those old-fashioned document-shredder pants. Yeee-ouch!

Posted by Tim Blair at July 21, 2004 11:55 PM
Comments

Oooooh, now I get it!!! [Liar, liar], Pants on Fire!

Aaahh Ha Ha Ha Ha -- Wooo Hoo Hoo Hoo - *gasp* - hee hee hee hee -- heh heh heh - heh heh - heh - *whew*

Now we return you to our regularly schedule programming -- on today's episode, Squidward moves to the planned community of Tentacle Acres to escape Spongebob and Patick's shenanigans.

Posted by: Tongue Boy at July 22, 2004 at 12:12 AM

Maybe this should be under the hot sauce comments, with the other hilarious 'Pants Of Death' stories.

Posted by: tree hugging sister at July 22, 2004 at 12:25 AM

Anyone have a link to a picture of this ridiculous flaming pants thing?

Posted by: akman at July 22, 2004 at 12:33 AM

Bluebell couldn't buy a better advertisement. They should thank Ben & Jerry for the marketing assist.

Posted by: c at July 22, 2004 at 12:49 AM

And the public is supposed to take their arguments seriously?

Posted by: Joe at July 22, 2004 at 12:57 AM

I can't help but wonder if it's sending out a message that Ben doesn't intend.

In Braveheart, Wallace refers to the stories that have grown up around him....I seem to recall that the line was something like 'twelve feel tall and shooting flames out of my arse' or some such thing.

Kids might begin to think that our president is a super-strong scottish robot with flaming fart action. And who'll get the votes then? The Amazing Cadavero or the Fartbot?

Posted by: jack at July 22, 2004 at 01:01 AM

I could show them how to properly light flames from one's ass. First thing I learned in college!

Posted by: Roger Bournival at July 22, 2004 at 01:06 AM

Another victim of Blair's Right-Wing Death Sauce!

Posted by: Paul Zrimsek at July 22, 2004 at 02:12 AM

The idiots are loose eh? Git thu rope clem.

Mike H.
Spokane, Wa

Posted by: Mike H. at July 22, 2004 at 03:43 AM

Bah, Jessie James did a giant Santa Skeleton on "Monster Garage" that was _much_ more impressive.

And it shot candy from its arms.

Posted by: Syd Barret at July 22, 2004 at 03:45 AM

This thing has its own website, with photos. The journal is a classic, the guy starts off normally enough but then it's as if after a couple of months on the road he flips and starts writing in the voice of the giant Bush effigy:

"Tomorrow plans are to get me a new tarp for my head and get the bracket on my right hand that holds up the sign repaired (I forget who wired it back on when it first broke, I think it has been a while. Not a big deal as long as the one on the left holds out, but since one failed, it is hard to trust the other one by itself.)"

Uh-huh, no wackos here then.

Posted by: dc at July 22, 2004 at 05:44 AM

Great. I can't wait until the campaign really starts to heat up, and they tour the country with a giant mirrored statue of Kerry and a statue of Bush covered with glue.

Posted by: SpoogeDemon at July 22, 2004 at 05:49 AM

Does Ben think we'd vote the adults out of office in favor of spoiled, whining children?

The one thing the federal government can do that no other entity can is fight the war on terror, and my money's on Bush.

Ben should have stuck to making ice cream.

Posted by: Retread at July 22, 2004 at 06:24 AM

Spokane? As in Spokane, Washington?

Ben, that's solid Bush country. You want Seattle, over on the other side of the mountains.

Posted by: rosignol at July 22, 2004 at 06:28 AM

Mike H., if I'd known about this piece of crap rolling into Eastern Washington, I would have driven up to express my opinion, by mooning these fools. Sadly, I am on business in other parts of the country.

And, y'know, I like Ben & Jerry's ice cream. I am really going to miss it now that I have sworn off giving money to those cretins.

Posted by: The Real JeffS at July 22, 2004 at 09:06 AM

That was an anti-Bush statement? Damn, I thought they had released a new "hot 'n' spicy" flavoured ice cream.

Posted by: 2dogs at July 22, 2004 at 09:45 AM

The RealJeffS,

Bluebell is a Texas ice cream, last I heard. Why don't you give it a try? Parochial over PC any day, yes??

Posted by: c at July 22, 2004 at 12:27 PM

The best ice cream in the world is at Graeters here in Ohio. Rich taste, not full of air like the major chains, best ice cream i've ever tasted.
(Yes I know this sounds like an ad, but that's really how I feel about it.)

Posted by: Matt Taylor at July 22, 2004 at 01:40 PM

JeffS, I've got no clue as to where this thing is.
We've had, to my knowledge, zero publicity on it. In
fact I didn't learn about it until I read Tim (First
with the News) Blair's blog.

Posted by: Mike H. at July 22, 2004 at 01:53 PM

When are some enterprising counterdemonstrators going to show up in groups of 20 with Berger slacks on with documents hanging out? Cheap and funnier.

Posted by: bbridges at July 22, 2004 at 05:59 PM

Who are those 2 characters from South Park,they made a movie Asses of Fire (I think) and started a war with the Canadians.Perhaps these icecream guys are just confused farters

Posted by: gubbaboy at July 22, 2004 at 07:24 PM

"Portraying flames shooting out of the pants of the president isn't disrespectful, Cohen argued."

That's because we have all envisioned too-sexy-for-his-clothes Clinton like that for a number of years now. He's soooooo hot!


Posted by: NOW at July 23, 2004 at 01:39 AM

My 3 year old grandson has about the same mental level. Ben, you should have stopped smoking the "funny cigarettes" a long, long time ago.

Also my grandson could have made something more believeable.

In the immortal words of my mentor, Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon."

Elizabeth
Imperial Keeper of Killer Lagomorphs

Posted by: Elizabeth at July 23, 2004 at 01:45 AM

Ookaay...I guess he needed a hobby after selling the business.

Posted by: Mike at July 23, 2004 at 03:30 AM

Bluebell, eh? I'll give it a shot!

Mike H., no local advertising, huh? Must be the results of the VRWC!!! ;-)

Posted by: The Real JeffS at July 23, 2004 at 04:00 AM

Jeff, got that *right*! (Little Cohen humor there)

Posted by: Mike H. at July 23, 2004 at 05:58 AM

Could you trust ANOTHER democrat tour?

How about touring with a giant Clinton with his "bits" hanging out, holding a sign saying "I did not have sexual relations with that woman".

Posted by: Rob Read at July 23, 2004 at 11:09 PM