CSotD: Oh, the places you shouldn’t go …
Skip to comments
I don't feature David Horsey's cartoons as often as I enjoy them, and that's largely because, while his draftsmanship is among the best in the business, his cartoons don't always stand alone terribly well, for reasons I can't quite explain, since many of them absolutely do.
But that makes his gig at the LA Times perfect, because he draws an engaging cartoon and then discusses it and the result is a complete halt-and-read for me whenever he updates.
Amid a glut of Ted Cruz cartoons (Did you ever notice his name sounds like "cruise"? The cartoonists have.) and other panels on GOP obstructionism, including a couple of suicide bomber types, Horsey's take stands out not so much for the comic itself as the rap he puts under it.
Here's the part that illuminated the niggling doubt I've been chasing down:
In a normal political negotiation, one party grants something the other
side wants in order to get something they want. Republicans are
pretending that the process going on now is exactly that. They are
offering a trade: If the president will dump the healthcare plan that
Congress approved and the Supreme Court ratified as constitutional, they
will, in exchange, keep the government in business and allow the debt
ceiling to be raised. But that’s not a standard political swap. Keeping
government functioning and preserving the integrity of government credit
are not simply items on Obama’s legislative agenda. They are core
elements of operating a sound government and maintaining a healthy
economy.
Exactimundo, mon frere. That was what I was trying to isolate!
Which is the other reason I don't cite him here as often as I might: He generally explains his cartoons better than I would.
But let's stay on the topic of Congressional anarchists, particularly the one who wants to be a heavyweight but remains ever one class below that (okay, I noticed it, too), because here's something nobody has explained to my satisfaction:
Everybody leaps at any chance to try their hand at a little Seussian doggerel, and Cruz's reading of "Green Eggs and Ham" has been echoed and re-echoed by cartoonists, some of whom even manage to make it scan (pet peeve alert).
Oddly enough, there have only been a couple of commentators in any medium who picked up on the fact that, much as the protagonist bitches, moans and insists throughout the book that he hates green eggs and ham, he's never actually tried it and, when he finally does, he discovers that he really, really likes it.
The moral of the story is "Give it a shot before you condemn it."
I don't think that was the message Ted Cruz was trying to put forth.
And if he couldn't grasp the point of a children's book, it's asking a lot to expect that he'd realize he was quoting a noted leftie to begin with.
Granted, it's an open question which Seuss hated more, those, like Lindbergh, who wanted to give Hitler a chance, which would play into the hands of the "To hell with Rouhani's overtures! Let's bomb'em!" crowd or the anti-Semites Lindbergh and the rest of the bundt were climbing into bed with, which would put him at odds with those who spread blanket hatred of Muslims.
But, that issue aside, Seuss was a huge fan and supporter of FDR, and the generosity and social consciousness of the New Deal is anaethema to Cruz's Tea Party faithful.
You don't have to be a historian to know that Seuss, even when he turned from political cartooning and became a beloved children's author, was a treehugger and, for instance, championed not only sparing the Whos from genocide but persuading the Grinch to share with them.
On the other hand, maybe all the rightwing accusations that legislators who supported Obamacare hadn't read the entire bill were sincere: Maybe Republican legislators actually don't have staffs to do their research for them.
Because you wouldn't need to hire a Rhodes Scholar to have somebody in the office bright enough to say, "I don't think this bit of Seuss would get us many votes in North Carolina, Texas or Florida."
(More Seuss political cartoons here)
Mike Peterson has posted his "Comic Strip of the Day" column every day since 2010. His opinions are his own, but we welcome comments either agreeing or in opposition.
Comments 2
Comments are closed.