Category Archives: Me
Bystander President
Reagan was the Teflon president. He had an easy charm and nothing bad seemed to stick. Obama is the bystander president. He reads about bad things that happen on his watch as if they had nothing to do with him. He’s just like you and me, sitting at the bar madder’n hell. Except he gets to go on TV and complain. At least I get to draw a cartoon.
Missing Airplane
Why does the media give insane wall to wall coverage of a missing airplane when nobody knows what happened? I’ve been watching nonstop while doing this cartoon! Oh that’s why.
Flynt v Falwell Cartoon First Amendment Anniversary
Today is the 20th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Flynt v Falwell decision. It was a very important ruling because it acts as a kind of get out of jail card for cartoonists. Also, it gives me an excuse to quote myself from my book The Recent History of the United States in Political Cartoons: A Look Bok!:
As an endangered industry, political cartooning seeks, and gets, federal protection. It comes in the form of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Flynt v Falwell
Larry Flynt published an over-the-top raunchy cartoon, in his porn magazine Hustler. The cartoon was about Rev. Jerry Falwell and his mother. Falwell sued and the case made its way to the Supreme Court. Falwell claimed the cartoon caused him emotional distress. Of course it did. That was the point, as Chief Justice Rehnquist noted in the court’s unanimous opinion for Flynt:
“The appeal of the political cartoon or caricature is often based on the exploration of unfortunate physical traits or politically embarrassing events… often calculated to hurt the feelings of the subject of the portrayal.”
In order to protect political cartoons the court had to protect Larry Flynt’s offensive cartoon. Not many jobs have a Supreme Court mandate to cause emotional distress.
Even so, it’s not like I keep this date marked on my calendar. I noticed it when I stumbled on this piece about it by Carl Cannon at Real Clear Politics. Cannon had this to say about the court’s ruling:
To decide otherwise, the eight justices reasoned, would effectively outlaw political cartooning. This, too, the high court ruled, would be an unwise and unconstitutional decision to render. Rehnquist quoted approvingly from the words of a cartoonist:
“The political cartoon is a weapon of attack, of scorn and ridicule and satire; it is least effective when it tries to pat some politician on the back. It is usually as welcome as a bee sting, and is always controversial in some quarters.”
First Amendment
Flynt and Falwell eventually went on the road together debating the First Amendment.
War on Women
Democrats created the “war on women” as a campaign issue against Republicans who didn’t want to pay for abortion and contraceptive coverage. Something fully supported by The Weiner The World Awaited and Filthy Filner.
In fact, Michelle Malkin notes on Twitchy that Planned Parenthood endorsed Filner in 2012 as a “long time defender of women”.
Of course, there is a history of women supporting bad boys.
News Not Fit to Print
How do you draw an editorial cartoon about murdering babies after botched abortions? Especially when readers won’t know what you’re talking about because the national media are ignoring the story?
That’s the case with the Gosnell murder trial in Philadelphia. I’ve been following it for a while on Fox News and a few blogs like Breitbart but nobody else (except the Philadelphia Inquirer and other local outlets) seemed to be covering it. That is until Kirsten Powers blew the lid off in a USA Today article about the curious incuriosity of the mainstream media.
With the cat out of the bag, others, including Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic and Megan Mcardle in The Daily Beast, began to question the media lack of interest. By that time it was Friday, the traditional bad news dump day.
