More on Rove's contempt for everybody...

Real quick Moron post for this week's 'toon, as I've got about eight different (animated) balls in the air...

• Brave New Films has an entire website devoted to sending old turd blossom to jail.
  
  
• David Iglesias:
  

  It is unacceptable in a country where the rule of law is the cornerstone of our jurisprudence that a former White House official fail to appear to claim privilege before Congress. Rove should have appeared before Congress and claimed privilege. Rather, he thumbed his nose at a co-equal branch of government and showed his utter disregard for their powers. His actions are contemptuous per se and he should be held in contempt by the House. The language of 18 USC § 1503(a) is broad since it speaks of “influencing” an “officer…of the United States” in the “discharge of his duties” including the “due administration of justice.”
  Applying this test to the allegations concerning the Siegelman matter, for instance, the evidence suggests that Rove influenced a U.S. Attorney in the discharge of her duties. This is a very serious matter and needs to be fully investigated since a non-attorney policy adviser has no business influencing the indictment of an elected official.

• In case you missed it, the House Judiciary Committee did indeed vote to hold Rove in contempt of Congress. So, this means the Democrats are totally getting serious now and he's gonna be in a jail cell by the end of the week, right?
  
  Uh huh...
  
  Pelosi says the full House isn't even going to think about it until September, by which time the Dems will be in full-on election mode. Close Obama adviser Cass Sunstein has already "cautioned against prosecuting criminal conduct from the current administration," or even the "slight appearance" of such attempts.
  

Fighting Words: 7/28/08 Cartoon...

"The Barry Novack Show: I Have an Out-of-Control Teen!"...

More on the Death of Impeachment...

Some cartoons have characters that are just damn fun to draw... this week's is one of those cartoons. By the way, that is indeed supposed to be Chief Justice John Roberts at the ripe old age of 95 (or however old he'll be in 2048), presiding over the impeachment proceedings.

Most of what I was going to talk about in this 'toon (like the FISA "compromise" and Obama's toe-dipping in right-wing waters) is getting pushed to next week's 'toon. Here's a couple articles, though:

• Dennis Kucinich on Democracy Now:
  

  George Bush has enough time to bomb Iran on another pretext. He has enough time to continue policies of torture. He has enough time to continue policies of eavesdropping and wiretapping. He has enough time to continue to ignore critical science with respect to global climate change. He has enough time to help facilitate more violations of election law for the 2008 election.
  We don’t have enough time. We can’t spend any more time temporizing, while the Constitution, the United States laws, international laws, are being shredded.

  
  Jason Leopold:
  

  Kucinich said the articles of impeachment against President Bush are a way for lawmakers to "create an historical record of the misconduct of the Bush administration."



• Gore Vidal's article of impeachment:
  

  And as I listened with awe to Kucinich, I realized that no newspaper in the U.S., no broadcast or cable network, would pay much notice to the fact that a highly respected member of Congress was asking for the president and vice president to be tried for crimes which were carefully listed by Kucinich in his articles requesting impeachment. But then I have known for a long time that the media of the U.S. and too many of its elected officials give not a flying fuck for the welfare of this republic...
  
  

• And, in case you missed it (and judging by the crickets coming from the "liberal media," it's entirely possible that you did):
  

  Ivy Leaguers and other top law students were rejected for plum Justice Department jobs two years ago because of their liberal leanings or objections to Bush administration politics, a government report concluded Tuesday.

  In one case, a Harvard Law student was passed over after criticizing the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. In another, a Georgetown University student who had previously worked for a Democratic senator and congressman didn't make the cut.

  Even senior Justice Department officials flinched at what appeared to be hiring decisions based — improperly and illegally — on politics, according to the internal report.

  
  I suppose this report will go with the NIE on Iran's nuclear weapons program (or lack thereof), into the mainstream media's circular file cabinet... into a file labeled "Proof That the Bush Administration Lied About Important Stuff," in a redwell called "Stuff That We Will Never, Ever Talk About"...
  

Fighting Words: 6/30/08 Cartoon...

"Future Viewer: The Impeachment of President Goober Johnson"...

Fighting Words: 6/2/08 Cartoon...

"The Scott-Botinator"...


Man, I needed an easy topic for a cartoon this week, and the political cartooning gods hooked me up...

No Moron post this week, as I expect to be pretty busy. I'll try to do a post on the road from NYC.

See the previous appearances of Scott-Bot:

More on "Wordy" Editorial Cartoons, Bush's Legacy

Recently, it was suggested in the comments section of a popular cartooning blog that modern editorial cartoonists (as differentiated from retro, Jeff MacNelly-style editorial cartoonists) only use a lot of words because they're trying to be "hip." This is interesting to me... all this time, I've been spending all these hours holed up in libraries reading and writing for each cartoon, and it turns out I was just trying to look cool. If this is indeed true, I expect that this week's cartoon will make me the baddest mutherfucka on the planet. I'm talkin' like the Lenny Kravitz of editorial cartooning...

Article tidbits:

• McClatchy shocker:
  

  An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorist network.

• Paul Richter:
  

  President Bush's plans to end his term with a strong U.S. military presence in Iraq, and to leave tough decisions about ending the unpopular war to his successor.
  ...
  
  The plans also would allow Bush to live up to his pledge to the defining mission of his presidency, and perhaps to improve his chances for a decent legacy. He can say he left office pursuing a strategy that was having at least some success in suppressing violence, a claim that some historians may view sympathetically.

• Mark Danner:
  

  At the center of our national life stands the master narrative of this bifurcated politics: the Iraq war, fought to eliminate the threat of weapons of mass destruction that turned out not to exist, brought to a quick and glorious conclusion on a sunlit aircraft carrier deck whose victory celebration almost instantly became a national embarrassment. That was four and a half years ago; the war's ending and indeed its beginning, so clearly defined for that single trembling instant, have long since vanished into contested history.

• Jack Balkin:
  

  [Bush's larger strategy is] to entrench the U.S. presence in Iraq for the foreseeable future, and do what he can to ensure that John McCain becomes President, or failing that, Hillary Clinton as a second best solution. He figures that McCain, and, to a lesser extent Clinton, are most likely to continue aspects of his policies and keep troops in Iraq for some time. The longer that the next president continues his policies-- including warrantless surveillance, his interrogation practices, and his war in Iraq, the longer these features will become normalized and/or the next President's problem.

• Robert Costanza makes an interesting point about the prevailing indicator of our economic health:
  

  An oil spill, for example, increases GDP because someone has to clean it up, but it obviously detracts from well-being. More crime, more sickness, more war, more pollution, more fires, storms and pestilence are all potentially positives for the GDP because they can spur an increase in economic activity.
  
  GDP also ignores activity that may enhance well-being but is outside the market. The unpaid work of parents caring for their children at home doesn't show up in GDP, but if they decide to work outside the home and pay for child care, GDP suddenly increases. And even though $1 in income means a lot more to the poor than to the rich, GDP takes no account of income distribution.
  
  In short, GDP was never intended to be a measure of citizens' welfare -- and it functions poorly as such. Yet it is used as a surrogate appraisal of national well-being in far too many circumstances.
  
  

  
  

Fighting Words: 3/17/08 Cartoon...

"The Pages of History"...

About Damn Time...

Veto override #1 is on the way.

Bush just doesn't give a damn who he's screwing these days, as long as he can try to stick it to Congress...

More on Bush the Moron...

Pretty straight-forward cartoon this week... inspired by a few especially good gems from our favorite bad sitcom character who just happens to be real. No doubt you've already heard about most of these:

• "The No Child Left Behind Act is working... as yesterday's positive report card shows, childrens do learn..." (emphasis added)
  
  --Bush at a media event in New York, speaking to a group of schoolchildren.


• "We're also talking to different finance ministers about how we can send a message to the Iranian government that the free world is not going to tolerate the development of know-how in how to build a weapon, or at least gain the ability to make a weapon." (emphasis added)
  
  --Bush at a recent D.C. speaking event.


• "My advice to whoever will be our nominee is to reach out to the African-American community as well as other communities, because I believe we've got a very strong record when it comes to... fairness in justice." (emphasis added)
  
  --Recent Bush press conference.


• "I heard somebody say, 'Where's Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead!" (emphasis all his, which is what made it classic)
  
  --Bush in another recent press conference, in a bizarre attempt to justify the Iraq War.


• Lastly, New York Times columnist David Usborne on Bush's recent address before the UN General Assembly:
  

  But the President, who used his appearance at the podium yesterday to call for a "mission of liberation" to bring democracy and human rights to countries under dictatorship or repressive rule, needs a little help in this regard.
  Heaven forefend that he mangles the names of Sarkozy, say, or Mugabe. We know this thanks to a snafu by the White House staff who mistakenly allowed a few journalists to glimpse a draft of the President's address complete with phonetic spellings in brackets to assist him with names of people and places. In the correct version for the press, they had been erased.
  
  ...[The] President's crib notes:
  Kyrgyzstan, KEYR-geez-stan
  Mauritania, moor-EH-tain-ee-a
  Mugabe, moo-GAH-bee
  Harare, hah-RAR-ray
  Sarkozy, sar-KO-zee
  Caracas, kah-RAH-kus
  

A lot of people complain that they're tired of the "Bush is an idiot" jokes, but I believe I will continue to enjoy talking about it long after he's out of office. It's the single biggest reason why he should've been gone a long time ago: he is not and has never been qualified to be President of the United States. All this quibbling about which scandal was the worst (Scooter Libby or the U.S. Attorney's scandal? WMD's or torture? Warrantless surveillance or tax cuts for billionaires?), when it should've been patently obvious to all of us very early on that the man lacked the intellectual capacity to appreciate the real-world consequences of the decisions he was making. Everybody knew he was simply a dimwitted frontman for extremists, we all knew nothing good could come of it, and yet all we could do was sit and watch events unfold. Who didn't know within 48 hours of Katrina hitting the Gulf Coast that New Orleans was going to get screwed on rebuilding?

Nonetheless, I think it won't be until we have a decade or two of separation from the Bush presidency before there is a real understanding within our society of just how embarrassing this chapter of American history has been...

Fighting Words: 10/1/07 Cartoon...

"TV History: Sitcom 'Fools'"...

Fighting Words: 8/20/07 Cartoon...

"Media Machine!"...

More on Bush's veto, Democratic response...

This is one of those cartoons on which I may very well have gone too far. It's hard to tell at this point exactly where the Dems are going with this whole "bringing the war to an end" thing they swear they're gonna do... but their history and some ominous rumblings tell me that they're already looking for a way to chicken out.

Let's call it a "premonition"...

• Are the Democrats backing down on the timetable for withdrawal? Jonathan Weisman and Shailagh Murray say yes, and quote Pelosi as saying "We made our position clear. He made his position clear. Now it is time for us to try to work together." However, Weisman also produced a rather snotty piece of journalism in which he maintains that the Dems will be courting disaster if they try to confront Bush.
  
  Greg Sargent calls him on this, and correctly points out that the polls clearly show that the public is aching for someone to stand up to Bush on the war. Sargent also seems to think that it's too early to pass judgment on the Dems quite yet, as he reports that Pelosi is denying that they are backing down on the withdrawal language.
  
  Noam N. Levey and Janet Hook note that Republicans are starting to peel away from Bush on the war, but also say that the Dems will indeed drop the withdrawal timelines from the next spending bill.
  
  Jonathan Singer doesn't like the noises he's hearing from Democrats. Dick Pohlman also thinks they may have peaked.


• Here's a good one: the first Weisman article above says that White House officials may be willing to accede to "benchmarks" instead of a "timetable," but that "they want them to be tied to rewards for achievement, not penalties for failure [my emphasis]." This is extremely funny to me... the Bush administration is like a bratty teenager who habitually brings home F's on his report card, but if he barely passes with a D, he wants a new car.


• OK, so what exactly should the Democrats do on the supplemental spending bill? Send that sucker back to him. If he vetoes it, send it back to him again. Make little technical adjustments if you have to, but do not weaken it.
  
  David Sirota argues that "each volley will drive Bush further into isolation and consequently bring the war closer to an end. The less power a pro-war president has, the more we will be able to end the war."


• Marcus Mabry has more on Bush's showing of 28% in the Newsweek poll, and Sheryl Gay Stolberg has Bush's "Commander Guy" quote. Eric Kleefeld also has these two stories, but points out that Dana Perino claims that President Numbnuts never called himself "The Commander Guy," only "A Commander Guy" (according to a revised White House transcript).
  
  How unfair. I'm sure he sounded much less stupid than he is being portrayed...

Fighting Words: 5/7/07 Cartoon

"The W-Files"...

Some more T.V. parodies:

More on Rove, various scandals...

Some articles that inspired Rove Ninja:

• On Rove's role in the email scandal, check out Dan Eggen, Michael Abramowitz, Daniel Schulman, and Michael Isikoff. As you probably know, Rove's "role" was pretty cut-and-dried: he intentionally deleted about four years' worth of emails, probably containing information on his role in such schemes as the outing of an undercover CIA agent and the firing of U.S. attorneys for political reasons. Apparently, he was using an RNC email system to evade legal requirements for document retention and to avoid having to turn the material over to Congress. Rove's deleting got so out of hand during the Plame investigation that the RNC had to take away his "erasing privileges"... after which, they probably made him stay after class for a half-hour to clean the blackboards.
  
  Patrick Martin also suggests that the White House is preparing to sacrifice Alberto in order to save Rove's ninja ass. Any day now... maybe...


• Can you spot all the contemporary movie references in this week's 'toon? Rove's teacher, of course, was based on Pai Mei from Kill Bill. I also just re-watched Batman Begins the other night... so that's in there. I think there's a Spiderman reference or two in there, too...

Fighting Words: 4/23/07 Cartoon

"Rove Ninja: Master of Deception"...

In honor of St. Patrick's Day...

So the news broke this week that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has confessed to being the mastermind behind "everything ever," a story that most media outlets seem to have accepted as absolute fact. I suppose it's possibly true, but considering the fact that the confession came from a Pentagon transcript taken during a secret hearing at Guantanamo (which means, of course, there is "no way to confirm the testimony as the Bush administration has banned reporters and lawyers from proceedings"), in a manner that conveniently takes some of the attention off of Alberto's U.S. attorney scandal and implicitly justifies his stances on torture and secret military tribunals, my immediate reaction is (to quote one of my favorite movies):

(in Irish accent) "I'll believe that one when me shit turns purple and smells like rainbow sherbet!"

It's not like the Defense Department has used up it's credibility on stuff like this, right?

More on U.S. v. Libby...

For this week's 'toon, I was seriously considering having Libby and some of his criminal cohorts reenact the scene from Goodfellas when they're in prison making pasta sauce. I would've had Abramoff and maybe DeLay there, perhaps Duke Cunningham also... and Cheney as Paulie Vario (who was doing a year for contempt) using a razor blade to "slice the garlic so thin that it liquifies in the pan." Classic scene. (By the way, some people think I'm crazy because I was disappointed by The Departed... I thought it was good, but not a fraction as good as Goodfellas was.)

Two things occurred to me: first, I do a lot of cartoons with gangster themes. Mostly, though, I don't think Libby's ever going to see the inside of a jail cell, minimum security or otherwise...

Anyway, here are some articles:

• Looks like the whole story is old news already with the U.S. attorneys scandal hitting a boil... Arianna Huffington ties the two scandals together.


• The central theme of this scandal (and the cartoon) is lies and liars... so many, in fact, that it often seems like you need a scorecard to keep them straight. Edward Lazarus has a couple of articles on the culture of lies in the current White House.


• On ol' crazy-ass "Rusty Spikes" Cheney's obsession to get even with Joe Wilson, check out columns by Ray McGovern and Sidney Blumenthal. Michael Duffy says that ol' Dick ain't quite done in the White House yet, though...


• Contrary to what anyone says, Libby was not "innocent." The Nation reports on Cathie Martin's testimony that Libby was "intensely engaged" in Cheney's campaign to get vengeance on Wilson. And, it was not "bad memory" on Libby's part... Patrick Fitzgerald maintains that Libby "made time to deal with the Wilson matter day after day after day."
  
  Don't kid yourself, though... his pardon is a done-deal. Most likely, he will appeal until after the 2008 presidential election, and then Dubya will bail him out. William Rivers Pitt agrees, and points out that Libby is a "damned lucky man" considering that "the lies promulgated by Mr. Libby led directly to the deaths of 3,185 American soldiers and the wounding of between 47,000 and 53,000... [which] amounts to between a third and a fourth of the entire active combat force of the United States military." The only question is whether Fitzgerald will push for Libby to begin serving his sentence now, which might force Dubya's hand earlier than expected.


• The mainstream media has been typically fabulous on this story, in particular the Washington Post editorial page. Robert Parry has an excellent column on this. Media Matters also has a roundup of some of the myths and falsehoods that have been coming out of the mainstream press on the Libby verdict.


• Will Karl Rove ever be indicted in this case? Not bloody likely... Fitzgerald says that he's "going back to his day job."

Fighting Words: 3/12/07 Cartoon

"U.S. v. Libby -- The Ballgame"...

More on Iraq, Iran, and War as a Children's Game...

Lots and lots of inspirations and sources for this week's 'toon:

• There were a few issues I wanted to touch on but couldn't work into the story, such as Bush's decision to send two aircraft carrier groups to the waters off Iran and his order to kill Iranian operatives in Iraq (which is called a "purely political" move). However, check out a terrific column by Robert Parry on the "logic" behind Bush's efforts to ratchet up tensions in the region.


• Why would he do this? Because, of course, Cheney and the neo-cons want it that way. Apparently, back in 2003, the White House had an opportunity for "a diplomatic prize of unparalleled proportions" -- a reasonable negotiated settlement with Iran. Of course, they blew it off because they were still expecting to be greeted with rose petals in Baghdad (with an encore in Tehran), and because Cheney said they "don't negotiate with evil." Juan Cole says: "For the Love of God Impeach this Man."
  
  In case you were wondering, the third Li'l Bushie along with George and Dick is Bill Kristol... not the best caricature ever, but it was my first time drawing him. Check out a post by Glenn Greenwald on the resurgence of neo-con influence over White House foreign policy decisions. In particular, Fred Kagan is said to have "won the ear of the President" on Iraq and Iran, which is not good news for any of us.


• I purposely avoided talking about the legality of the Iraq escalation or a possible Iran attack (I'll save that for another 'toon), but check out another excellent post by Glenn Greenwald on those issues.


• Is George W. Bush CRAZY? Justin A. Frank, M.D. says that he does indeed exhibit sociopathic tendencies, in the sense that he is someone who "exhibits external and surface empathy and amiability, but internally cannot actually empathize with the pain and suffering of others." He is one of many who say Bush has now adopted a "bunker mentality," and he argues that Dubya turns everyone who disagrees with him into his father (for example, James Baker).


• For in-depth analysis of the situation on the ground in Iraq, check out an article by Matt Taibbi, who argues that the whole idea that more troops will do any good in Iraq is "absurd on its face." He says that the majority of the troops there are holed up it Forward Operating Bases, simply trying to keep themselves safe, and that they are not actively engaged in keeping Iraq secure. The ones who go out on road patrol have been reduced to cannon fodder, forced to cross their fingers and hope they don't get blown up while driving around in circles.


• Notice any similarities between the current rhetoric on Iran and the Vietnam-era rhetoric on Cambodia and Laos? You're not imagining it...
  
  James Ridgeway argues that the Iraq surge may be a Kissinger ploy, in the sense that Bush "will plunge into a counterinsurgency operation in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, and then amidst mass civilian carnage, declare victory and announce negotiations." I think the apparent resurgence of neo-con influence makes this a less likely possibility.


• Do the Dems really have to cut off funding for the troops? Marty Lederman argues that they simply have to "pass an appropriations rider providing that no funds may be used to increase the number of troops in Iraq."


• Lastly, check out a typically outstanding column by Molly Ivins, who apparently is not doing well right now. She's one of the greats... give it a read.

...and probably more that I missed. Read a lot last week...

Fighting Words: 1/29/07 Cartoon

"Li'l Bushies 3: Real Men Go To Tehran"...

See the previous episodes here (4/17/06) and here (10/3/05).