Category Archives: obituary
Poppy in Cartoons, R.I.P.
Our 41st president George H.W. Bush died over the weekend. And the media has been heaping praise on him ever since. He was a man of great virtue. And the fact that his virtues – he was a genuine war hero with modesty, honesty and compassion – fit a narrative in sharp contrast to our 45th president may have something to do with it.
Here are some Bush 41 cartoons, along with text, from my book The Recent History of the United States in Political Cartoons, A Look Bok:
Click to enlarge.
Bush sought the Republican nomination for the 1988 presidential election and found it difficult to gain attention and traction while serving as vice president to the spotlight-savvy Reagan.
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George Herbert Walker Bush had run against Reagan for the 1980 Republican nomination. Reagan’s platform was for increased military spending and tax cuts. Reagan subscribed to a theory called “supply-side economics,” illustrated by the Laffer Curve, cooked up by economist Arthur Laffer. He predicted the tax cuts would cause so much new economic activity that tax revenues would increase enough to replace the money lost though tax cuts. During the campaign Bush called it voodoo economics. When the vanquished primary candidate Bush later became Reagan’s vp, many true believers questioned his conversion.
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The wimp factor was really a creation of the press.
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Budget Director Richard Darman fretted quite a bit about balancing the budget – especially in light of President Bush’s understated campaign pledge: “Read my lips, no new taxes.” Eventually Darman convinced Bush to raise taxes, sealing his fate, if not his lips, as a one-term president.
Hanoi Hilton Guest
Click St. Pete to enlarge
Can’t speak for Senator McCain but I have to think his finest hour – actually his finest five and a half years – was his time at the Hanoi Hilton. The North Vietnamese shot him down and captured him with two broken arms, a broken leg and a broken shoulder. When they found out his father was an admiral they offered to release him. McCain refused, denying the North Vietnamese propaganda points. His refusal earned him more torture for the next five and a half years in prison.
Billy Graham Joins Stoneman Douglas HS Kids
As news of the death of Billy Graham broke, friends and family of the Stoneman Douglas high school shooting victims gathered at the White House. It was tough to watch but I thought the kids and parents did a great job. The president listened respectfully with no tweeting. But he did encourage teachers to pack heat.
Here’s an editorial tribute to Rev. Graham from the WSJ (you might need a subscription). And here’s a less admiring one by George Will. John Kass of the Chicago Tribune has a good one here about the politics of guns and abortion.
Charles Manson Pallbearers
Charles Manson died this week, in a hospital. He was 83.
He and his cult of followers, the Manson Family, committed the Tate – LaBianca murders near Los Angeles in 1969. They killed 7 people including actress Sharon Tate. She was 8 1/2 months pregnant.
After killing Tate they smeared the word pig on the walls with her blood. Then they sat down to a “family” dinner.
Pallbearers
Kevin Williamson reminds us that Bernardine Dohrn, Jerry Rubin and other ’60s people thought Manson was cool. Dohrn is the wife of Obama pal Bill Ayers. She went on to become a law professor at Northwestern University. Here’s what she had to say about the murders:
“First they killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into a victim’s stomach. Wild!”
No, that’s not Jonathan Livingston Seagull in the picture.
