While everyone’s been talking about “The Life of Julia,” I’ve been investigating her “missing years.”

Julia, you see, is the title character in an online slide show created by the Obama re-election campaign that explains how the president’s policies give Julia a better life.

At age 3, Julia is enrolled in Head Start, a pre-kindergarten program for children from low-income families.

At 25, she graduates from college and is better off, the Obama folks say, because he’s keeping her college-loan rates low.

By 27, she benefits from ObamaCare and the “free” birth control it forces insurers to provide.

The slide show follows Julia through age 67, with Obama-supported government programs helping her every step of the way.

But one item the slide show doesn’t explore is this: At 31, when Julia decides to have a child, Zachary, there’s no mention of a father or a husband.

There’s no mention of anything that happens between ages 31 and 37 — Julia’s “missing years.”

After some investigative research, I was able to determine Zachary’s father’s name — and what happens during that time.

The father’s name is JimboBob — and, boy, is he different from Julia.

She’s clearly a sophisticated, highly progressive liberal, free from the stodgy traditions of more conservative people.

JimboBob, on the other hand, is a country bumpkin who never attended college. He’s a skilled laborer, working hard to make a decent wage.

He and Julia have a chance encounter when her government-subsidized electric car breaks down and JimboBob, having just wrapped up his shift, helps push it to the side of the road.

Julia’s 30 and eager to have a child. After she stops using her government-mandated-”free” birth control, she and JimboBob begin a relationship.

At 31, Julia gives birth to Zachary. JimboBob wants to marry her, but she refuses.

“Are you nuts?” says the independent woman, “And sacrifice my government benefits?”

Julia quits her job to stay home with Zachary. After all, the two qualify for all kinds of government assistance: welfare, housing, insurance, food, utilities, transportation …

JimboBob pleads with her to marry him.

“But I will love you and take care of you and our son,” he says. “I will take our son hunting and teach him good values.”

“No country bumpkin like you is going to teach Neanderthal values to my child,” she replies. “Now beat it.”

JimboBob spends thousands of dollars trying to win custody of his son, but is laughed out of court.

He knows government benefits are necessary to help those truly in need. Nobody disputes that, not even conservative Republicans.

But he senses those benefits are so out of control that they’re displacing him as a man and a father.

Isn’t that a key reason why more than half the children born in America today are born to single mothers?

Distraught, and not paying proper attention as he walks across a busy intersection, JimboBob is hit by a bus and killed instantly.

That’s very bad for Zachary.

Despite all kinds of government programs to help him, Zachary eventually falls into the path taken by so many fatherless sons.

He gets in with the wrong crowd, drops out of school and eventually does time for breaking and entering and grand larceny.

His fate is one of the many unintended consequences common to “benevolent” government programs.

Now you know what happens during Julia’s “missing years” — and why they’re missing from the slide show.

 

Tom Purcell is a freelance writer and humor columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune- Review. Email Tom at Purcell@caglecartoons.com.