Cartoonists With Attitude

Molly Ivins nominates Bill Moyers for President.

I’ll drink to that…

Aside from some general factual data that can be found anywhere, really my only source this week was Sean Wilentz’s recent article in Rolling Stone, “The Worst President in History?” Wilentz notes that a distinguishing characteristic of Bush’s abuse of power that sets it apart from previous presidential abuses of power is that the Bush administration openly seeks to overturn our balanced system of government as it was envisioned by the Framers, as demonstrated by their pushing of the “unitary executive” theory and Cheney’s stated ambitions to fulfill “the legitimate authority of the president.”

“History Machine: Great Presidential Moments“…

click for comic

I originally wanted every bit of advice the carny gave to be “join the carnival,” but decided that wasn’t much of a joke to waste eight panels on. After I wrote this, I felt like a dick for picking on poor defenseless carnies. But then I remembered all the times they wouldn’t let me on rides because I was too short. So fuck ‘em.

I’m not sure if it works in comic strip form, but I think “Ask a Carny” could thrive as a regular feature of this blog. I’m fortunate enough to have a friend who works in the carnival arts and he’s willing to answer your questions. He doesn’t have email, so if you send them to me (whale [at] bigfatwhale.com) I will pass them along through the CB. I’ll post his responses the next time he drifts through town.

Next Week: I attempt to wrestle the serious issues of the day while wearing a singlet of hilarity.

New Cartoons: “Failed Recruiting Slogans” and Mr. Bush’s Cryogenically Frozen Friendship Hour!

Plus Masheka’s new cartoon, “Summer Movie Hell!”

This first cartoon is of course in response to reports that recruiters are knowingly letting more neo-Nazis into the service. The recruiters’ goal? To meet their quotas. The neo-Nazi goal? To kill brown people and get professional training for a coming “race war”. As if troops of color didn’t already have enough problems…

As for the second, I am just deeply pissed off that Bush can even try to claim with a straight face that he has respect for life (see previous cartoon by that name) considering his track record–executing death row inmates, bombing the crap out of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, letting people drown in Katrina, handicapping AIDS prevention with his abstinence-only nonsense, cutting funding for health care and poverty programs and so on. The embryos get discarded from fertility clinics anyway, but are apparently still more precious to our crapmaster-in-chief than the lives of people who are living with cancer and Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Way to go.

Also, Masheka has a guide to Summer Movie Hell:

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On second thought, I’d probably pay to see “Axe Fight”.