CSotD: Like a sparrow picking out the oats
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This gig would be a lot easier at the moment if I weren't constrained by the Prime Directive, which is to feature good work and not snark at the bad.
Without stooping to examples, there are a lot of commentaries on the current shutdown that range from clueless to contemptible, and I'm not sure which classification is more distressing.
I mean, at least the ones who are telling outright lies about the situation are true to their intentions, and god knows there's plenty of precedence in political cartooning for the contemptible, including this gem about Irish-American pressure to take Protestant evangelizing out of the public schools, by the patron saint of American cartooning, Thomas Nast.
As I used to tell my high school audiences when I introduced them to Nast, his Tweed Ring cartoons were genius work and, while he did great harm to my Irish Catholic forbears, I acknowledge his genius.
And that, wherever he is today, I hope he's nice and warm.
I have to feel much the same for those who tell outright lies about the Affordable Care Act in particular and the government shutdown in general. Except the genius part, since most of what they're cranking out is pretty pedestrian schoolyard abuse.
But at least they're following a coherent agenda. It's the ones who genuinely don't get it who mystify me.
This Will Rogers take of "they're all to blame" is about the lowest form of political commentary. And I say that with all due respect to Rogers, who parlayed his "aw shucks" act into a highly profitable career,which makes him to the invincibly ignorant what Foster Brooks was to hopeless drunkards.
And, just as Brooks' routine is seen as uncool in a time when alcoholism is no longer considered amusing, I don't think posing as someone who doesn't know what the hell is going on is all that admirable in the Information Age.
I certainly don't find much to admire in the type of commentator who, at a moment of crisis, sees his job as sucking on the end of his pen and staring off into space before doodling another disposable donkeys-and-elephants panel, rather than making a serious attempt to find out what is actually happening and to form a coherent opinion about it.
With that understood, here are some cartoonists who appear to have actually put a little thought into the mission:
Start with Kevin Siers, who makes a simple statement about the illogic of the GOP's purported reason for opposing the Affordable Care Act, riffing on Berra and, by the way, doing so with a really nice caricature of Boehner.
The near-similarity of names makes the gag work even better, and, while Siers isn't the first person or even the only cartoonist to note this logical flaw, he's hit an admirable balance of doing the most with it while not overreaching by attempting to add some conspiratorial flourish to the technical logjam.
Scott Stantis pokes a sharper stick at Boehner with a contrast of governance and governess. Given the tear in the eye and the orange skin, plus a serviceable caricature in any case, I think the label is regretable, since it's so completely unnecessary, but I'm very pleased that he didn't try to narrow down who each of the squalling babies represents, because it doesn't matter.
It's an interesting blend, mocking Boehner's lack of leadership while simultaneously sympathizing with his impossible situation.
And speaking of that powerful tool, mockery, Mike Luckovich has been smackin'em over the wall lately as if it were batting practice. In the words of Daniel Lawrence Whitney, "That's funny, I don't care who you are."
Stuart Carlson makes a point about the real cost of symbolic gestures, and, while it was awfully nice of the late British Prime Minister to have a name that rhymed with "Milk Snatcher," the sneer on the elephant's face tells the story well, as does his inclusion of the Fox meme, "Slimdown."
It's hard to know where to draw the line between insensitivity and arrogance, and it may be more a case of a Venn diagram than a line with discreet points of division, but watching the anarchists attempt to finesse the impact by offering to fix this piece and that piece rather than admit the overall immorality of their heartless approach has been, well, interesting, as in "may you live in interesting times."
Gary Varvel, not known for liberal tendencies, uses a recent news item to cut to the chase, and, if he doesn't specifically take the Republicans to task, he does make the point of how generally outrageous the whole thing is.
Though perhaps none of it as outrageous as this Republican congressman who voted for the shutdown and then stuck a flag in his breast pocket (apparently a lapel pin wasn't big and noticeable enough) and went to the Memorial to get on camera and abuse a law officer for enforcing (and not even strictly) the results of what he himself had advocated.
Bottom Line: This is a nice array of cartoonists doing their jobs, but it's a select group and shouldn't be. If their colleagues are content to play Will Rogers or simply parrot the partisan talking points, it's a little hard to advocate for keeping political cartoonists on staff.
Especially when we've got this guy, who is willing to dig down and do some research:
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