Osama bin Laden cartoon of thank you letter to Pakistan

First Osama bin Laden cartoon

I was in shock for the first couple of days – I guess we all were – but the main question that nagged at me,  was why the sneak attack without Pakistan’s permission, and how could he possibly live there, in a bustling city, for so long, without anyone noticing? I can honestly tell you that I would have been on the phone to my Councilman, Tom LaBonge, within days of that house built and mysterious people moving in. So I did this cartoon right away, because I don’t like lying countries.

On the radio Wayne Resnick pointed out that the US is being very circumspect about both exclaiming that there is something suspicious about the whole thing, and yet on all the Sunday news shows, they denied that they have any evidence that Pakistan knew Osama was living there. Can’t wait til more facts are in on THAT one.

Interpretation of cartoon

Cartoon caption: Found in [Osama's] compound: some pressed violets, a machine gun, an old-fashioned photo of Osama bin Laden, and a thank you letter on creamy thick ecru stationary, reading: Dear Pakistan, I just wanted to thank you for giving me a home the past few years! Thanks for putting me up…and for putting up with me! I know I can be a handful, but you have always been a gracious host. You rock! Sincerely, your friend and America’s enemy, Osama bin Lad...and the note ends there, with some scattered drops of blood. We can only imagine what scenario took place there, and why the note ended so abruptly.

Since we kept hearing how the Osama team didn’t let electronics in the house, I wanted to use an old fashioned setup. Victorians were big on pressed flowers! And maybe Osama had picked some to give to Pakistan with the note. And I used an old-fashioned Kodak snapshot, from the 50′s or 60′s, as his picture.

Thank you notes are out of fashion now, but always appreciated.

Osama home videos

Also, I finally saw the Osama bin Laden home videos. Unlike the dog video, they were lame, as I expected. Time says:

But one video screened by the Pentagon offers a starkly different portrait of the infamous recluse. The seemingly candid video (above) shows Osama bin Laden sitting on the floor of his compound, watching satellite television. He holds the remote in his hand as he flips through the news networks to analyze the media’s coverage of him, a vain action he was said to engage in often…

Who writes this crap? Vain? Try living in Los Angeles, with actors everywhere you go. (but I love ‘em anyway!) And like everyone reading this doesn’t look themselves up in Google or post pictures of themselves in Facebook! Gah!

But it is not bin Laden’s vanity that has surprised so many web viewers, but rather his physical appearance. He appears frail and unkempt, with a beard that’s gray overall.

I’ve read this description in other sources, too. He doesn’t look frail to me, he looks cold. And, surprise, in Mideast countries they sit on the floor a lot, and they wear blankets and shawls all the time. It’s not enough that we killed the man – now the media wants to keep stirring the pot by saying silly slurs.

Image via Wikipedia - Osama is an author! He wrote this book!

The only thing I see wrong in the video is that the plugs are in a weird place on the wall, and the TV is much too small. Get a life.

More cartoons:

1. Obama found a horse head in his bed.
2. Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo’s purse.

Obama and Hillary Clinton discuss protocol for war and weddings

To the Royal Wedding, I mean. All the blogs are agog over it. I think I’d be more interested if the bride to be was a blonde. (J/K!) No, actually I find weddings to be boring, and pomp even worse.

Cartoon caption: Obama and Hillary Clinton stand before a map of Libya, with blood pouring down it. Obama says, It’s a difficult situation. Then, Since I’m not invited to the wedding, do I still have to send a wedding present?

Cartoon explanation

Oops. Has Obama confused Libya for England, or is he more concerned with having been rejected by the future King of England as a guest at the Royal Wedding of Prince William and Katherine Middleton? In other words, just a little joke. We think Obama is concerned about the problems in Libya, but he’s really thinking about the Royal Wedding. For the men in my audience, good manners (and wedding protocol) dictate that one sends a wedding present to the couple, IF one has been invited to a wedding, even if you are unable to attend. But in this case, he wasn’t invited, so…

And why wasn’t Obama invited? Really? Did Prince William have a tiff with Obama? I do consider it a slight against the United States, I do.

More cartoons:

1. Bill Clinton and the blue dress.
2. The Original Chia Pet Cartoon of Barack Obama.*

bank of japan throwing money into the country to stabilize the stock market

Of course, I may have the entire scenario wrong, but I got a nice colorful cartoon out of it, with a red Japanese sun on top. (Some of the editorial cartoons I saw on Japan had only the sun!  Oh, well, I took the path less trodden.:))

More cartoons:

1. Nuclear radiation from Japan!!!!!!
2. Banks timed failures to hide behind the election. Right?

Also, schools will be the first to get hit by radiation, if I remember classroom drills right

nuclear radiation from map of japan falls into school

I think we all knew that the media was exaggerating any danger from radiation. The brave Japanese workers who kept cooling down the factories kept most of the damage under control. (gulp)

People in LA got vaguely more interested in the idea that radiation might sail across the ocean and affect the west coast. Vaguely. But this post in LAist made me laugh out loud! They call Ann Coulter a nuclear physicist, who says radiation is “good for you”.

As people in Japan panic and workers risk their lives at the country’s Fukushima Nuclear Plant, Coulter went ahead and published a column called “A Glowing Report on Radiation.”

Hee! I didn’t read her column, and everyone loves to hate on Ann Coulter, but I met her once, and she was super-nice.

Cartoon caption: Little boy in classroom looks at map of Japan with nuclear radiation falling down from the map, and says, Ms. Figgens, do we have any more of those paper masks?

More cartoons:

1. Japanese Stock Exchange teeters after the earthquake, too.
2. Obama found a horse head in his bed.

chandra levy trial cartoon by mike lester

Caption: Jury convicts Ingmar Guandique, illegal immigrant and MS-13 gang member, of murdering Chandra Levy.

Mike Lester has a super-casual style, quite the opposite of old time editorial cartoons! This take on the Chandra Levy trial is a pretty straightforward idea, but I included it because I agreed with it. :) For one thing, I love trials and murders, and the Opinion pages rarely cover them. More importantly, this cartoon is about the media, which totally ignores important details in stories they cover, if they think it might “taint” the piece.

I remember when I first moved to Los Angeles, I was confused when the LA Times never reported the complete story about criminals or crimes. Was it an illegal alien or gang who did the deed? Wasn’t that, alone, enough to arrest someone? Never! Even when they were indicted, important info about the bad people was kept out of the papers. Mike points out here that Ingmar Guandique, the killer was indeed here illegally (and was already guilty of other crimes).

Chandra lost her life, Gary Condit lost his career. Yet the media, by and large, lets criminals keep their secrets and whitewashes the facts.

obama care cartoon by eric allie

Caption of Obama and Nancy Pelosi looking at Obamacare: We should have spent more time on the birth announcement.

I laughed out loud at this cartoon by Eric Allie on Obamacare! Something about the octopus in the baby carriage…He includes recognizable sketches of Obama and Pelosi staring at their little darling, too! There’s an Uncle Sam running in the corner, a rather tired old symbol, but his bug eyes and running legs are amusing. (Secret PS: I admire Eric for not drawing all 8 legs on the octopus (sorry, no link now, explained below), as I did. He’s carefree!)

dangerous north korea cartoon by paresh nath - naval exercise

Caption: The US and South Korea circle around the shark of North Korea with a big stick.

Let’s get serious, now, less fluff and more danger. And another Uncle Sam, but he carries a big stick, like certain states.

I don’t know if South Korea is really bff with the US, but certainly North Korea is on its own. South Korea wants a strong Navy, and that makes North Korea skittish. Very clever use of Kim Jong Il’s strange pouffy hair as a shark fin! Paresh titles this cartoon Naval Exercise, but I would call it every other country’s idea of America as surfer dudes on water skis.

Most political cartoonists, especially overseas ones, don’t use straight dialogue, and so they’re sometimes forced to add labels. The labels in this cartoon are unobtrusive and clear, and they don’t detract from the amusing and striking drawing, so good enough. I like the monarch floating in the water, too. Will a big stick work to keep him underwater?

Thanks to Cagle Cartoons for all good work from these guys!

My own recent cartoons:

In case you missed it, my DADT cartoon was picked as one of the best cartoons of the year for Slate. (Sorry, no link now. Uclick Gocomics threw away 2 years of my cartoons on Slate, Gocomics and Yahoo News when they kicked me out.)

don't ask don't tell cartoon

Okay, so it’s the last one in the list. Whatever, right?!

I also did this snazzy cartoon on Miss Sarah Palin. (Sorry, no link now. Uclick Gocomics threw away 2 years of my cartoons on Slate, Gocomics and Yahoo News when they kicked me out.)

cartoon of liberals making fun of sarah palin

It has 28 comments so far on Gocomics. (Sorry, no link now. Uclick Gocomics threw away 2 years of my cartoons on Slate, Gocomics and Yahoo News when they kicked me out.)

Related article on examiner.com:

• Cartoons on Obamacare, the media, and North Korea’s dangerous games. (examiner.com)

More cartoons:

1. Who doesn’t hate AIG?
2. Yahoo! News Editorial Cartoon on food stamps.

Since I’m editor here, I shan’t go into my personal  stuff – like my car accident, dealing with 2 insurance companies, aftereffects of the accident, a new problem in the car, which wouldn’t start, and now is in the shop for a possible VERY expensive bill, which may or may not be connected to the accident, my dentist as a result of the accident, and the fact that malware infected my computer for 4 days, and completely disabled my internet connection as well as my Task Manager, which I finally eradicated through an antivirus program with the regrettable name of SuperAntiSpyware Free Edition. But it worked. Most of the others wouldn’t.

All is calm today, anyway, so I hurried to the new cartoons to see what had happened this week while I was missing! (I explain how and why I do this roundup over here.)

hagen cartoon on nuclear disarmament from gocomics.com

This cartoon by Hagen from gocomics.com,  made me laugh out loud! Mr. Hagen, from Norway,  might not be interested in partisanship, but this is EXACTLY how I view Democrats 99% of the time! Tossing off a loud reproof in the general direction of a problem and not doing a thing about it.  The chasm separating the Dems from taking action is astounding.

I love Obama’s little squat here as he tries to speak a little louder, to get his point across. The man on the other side is holding a nuclear weapon. Who is that guy? Is it just Iran? I don’t know, and so I declare right this moment that I won’t do a cartoon on nuclear bombs until I figure out who this important person is. 

ted rall cartoon on miranda rights from gocomics.com

Ted Rall and I don’t have a relationship, not really, but I would say we have a strained respect. Ted comes from the world of the Alties – alternative cartoons – and I don’t know if he’s ever recovered emotionally from that. I only read a couple of alternative comics, and now that they’re not in the LA Weekly, I never see them. I didn’t read Ted. But now that I do political cartoons,  of course I see him in Gocomics.com, and, in fact, he’s the most popular cartoonist in the editorial section. (Uclick only shows comics from 10 men there, so of course the SAME 10 people are there every day, every year. Convenient! UPDATE: now Signe Wilkinson is there, after I complained for 2 years. Only, it’s a lie, because she’s NOT one of the top 10, she’s #15.)

I do think he’s super smart and educated, and  does some clever cartoons. However, he has the same (only?) flaw as I do: sometimes he tries to make too many points at the same time, kind of jumping around, and not everyone gets convoluted cartoons!. (I’ve seen Ted a few times lately in the LA Times, and even though I live here, I’ve only understood one cartoon out of 4.)

This is an interesting cartoon on Miranda rights, and indeed, our privacy rights. I didn’t know about this Supreme Court ruling, but it’s fascinating: now the police can question you for hours, until you confess. For stupid people,  this will get them in jail faster. And it might give us more interesting true murder books.  But this looks like a dumb ruling,  so I don’t know what the police will actually do as they apply it.

This subtext between the police and the suspect reminds me of a film noir, (which LA Times readers always dig, proving that once again they know art in a way no other city does). What will happen here next?!

MIKE KEEFE Helen Thomas cartoon from CagleCartoons.com

I also see from these intrepid and hard-working cartoonists that Helen Thomas may have spoken thoughtlessly.  I had to look up what the White House Press Corps is – just the reporters who apparently write down every golden word in all the conferences.  I didn’t know it was an elite group. Anyway, she said some mean things, and now she’s gone. I saw several cartoons bashing her, but I liked this one by Mike Keefe, from Caglecartoons.com, because he brought humor to the situation by introducing her as a lightning rod in talk radio!

I love talk radio!! I’ve been kind of busy lately, so haven’t had that much time to listen, but I haven’t heard anyone even mention her. Still, good way to cover the whole nasty situation, while not skewering a much older, former respected journalist. Also like the bounce movement, and the suggestion that from the White House, to talk radio, is a world away! Good, Mike.

NATE BEELER soccer and Israel cartoon from caglecartoons.com

I also noticed a hella lot of cartoons from the guys about some sporting event going on last week. For all I know, it could still be going on. It looks like a big soccer game. I picked Nate Beeler’s cartoon from Caglecartoons.com because it’s a two-fer: a sporting match plus an international cartoon about Israel! As far as I know, Israel wasn’t actually dissed at the games, but that’s not my arena.

As an artist, I was impressed with the limited number of colors here, while also showing different uniforms, and legs going all which way. Nice, Nate!

I have a couple of runner up cartoons. Obviously, the oil spill is the big big story, and I plan a nice roundup of the best BP oil cartoons later this week, but I also wanted to include one here, just because it’s such an important story.

hajo oil spill cartoon from gocomics.com

Nice oil spill cartoon from Hajo, of the Netherlands and gocomics.com, with Obama as the oil victim instead of the pelicans. The oil looks particularly viscous and disgusting here, which is as it should be.

PATRICK CHAPPATTE from politicalcartoons.com

An alternate soccer games cartoon. This is a beautiful cartoon by Patrick Chappatte from political cartoons.com about the soccer games. I didn’t know the games were in Africa until I saw this, and what an exquisite way to make the point!

BILL SCHORR voting poll cartoon from politicalcartoons.com UNCONVINCED

Voting is over, but this cartoon by Bill Schorr still made me laugh! He titled it: Unconvinced. Wishy-washy would work as well. This is really a New Yorker type cartoon, so it’s not right for the LA Times. On the other hand, Joel Pett continues to pick serious, not funny or creative cartoons for the print edition of the LA Times, so you’ll have to decide: laugh or cry?

Many thanks to the talented creative cartoonists who make our life better, and allow us to look at the news in a new way, and to gocomics.com and politicalcartoons.com who feel the same wonder towards cartoonists, even though I think they could pay a teensy bit more to us in their appreciation.

My own recent cartoons:

facebook cartoon in prison

Hey, you have to do something with all that free time. Comments on Facebook in prison here. (Sorry, no link now. Uclick threw away 2 years of my cartoons on Slate, Gocomics and Yahoo News when they kicked me out of Gocomics.)

adult entertainment in california cartoon

Porn (pron?) in Van Nuys? Say it ain’t so. Comments on porn here. (no link, read above)

red oil spill cartoon

What’s red all over? Comments on this strange cartoon here. (No link, read above)

As always, if you are a cartoonist and would like to submit one new cartoon a week, please do. And if anyone has a different opinion on these cartoons, fire away. All cartoons here are copyrighted by the respective cartoonists, and cannot be used without permission.

More cartoons:

1. The beach, the surf, and California’s political campaign. Aah.
2. Ink spill cartoons for the LA Times for May, 2010.

Of course, the PB oil spill continues to be the biggest story around. In one way, I’m happy about that, but before you label me an oil-hugger, let me explain that it’s because environmental issues, or green, as the kids call them, are almost always B or C stories in the news. Just blips most of the time. And now everyone is seeing what a terrible natural disaster (MANMADE, you BP asshats) does to the whole world.

Also, this is a great issue for cartoonists to dive into. Yes, it took an oil spill tragedy to get cartoonists to STOP dwelling on Sarah Palin. Forgot about sniping for a while, didn’t you, guys? SNAP.

Speaking of, I’ll do another oil cartoon roundup later this week, as there are a couple of great cartoons on that, but will focus on other news with this LA Times editorial cartoons selection.

nate beeler on incumbents from politicalcartoons.com

I thought I knew what incumbents are – those people already in office- but wondered why there were a number of cartoons about them recently. Ask and ye shall receive. Half hour ago from the LA Times:

Discontent with incumbents and anti-Washington anger are adding up to a potentially record-breaking crowd of congressional challengers this election year.

More than 2,300 people are running for the House and Senate in the midterms, the highest number in at least 35 years…

Like Senator Specter was tossed out on his heinie. Well, there aren’t any dramatic incumbents in California, but I think LA needs to think about other cultures, like the East Coast, more. Like this homeless man. He’s very rude, which is natural back there. Nobody in LA would ever talk like this, nor would they throw food. ( I thought this was a general wearing medals at first, but now I see that it’s fruit on his suit.) However, we’ve all worked on or visited a movie set, so we get the pandering part.

Nice colors, Nate Beeler!

dick locher graduation cartoon from gocomics.com

Lotsa people looking for graduation cartoons lately. I liked this one by Dick Locher, as it didn’t have the usual stage with graduates setup. Location is king! Plus, I’ve never been to a tailor, but I like the details from an old department store. And clever use of just one word. I think this would have been better in color, however.

nuclear energy cartoon by rainer hachfeld from politicalcartoons.com

Time for an international cartoon for the great LA Times! I love this purposely stiff, comic-book style cartoon by Rainer Hachfeld! Obviously, it’s about nuclear energy, and it must be a very important news item, but mostly I love the amusing way the men toss the nuclear bombs back and forth without the guy in the middle even noticing! Oh, okay, these European cartoonists really know their stuff, and I don’t want to be an ignorant slut Angeleno, so off I run to Google to try to figure out who these men are. I do recognize Ahmadinejad – I think – from a previous cartoon, and the other 2 guys are…Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, suggests the New York Times.

I’m not going to read the whole thing.

But it looks like all 3 of them know about the nuclear weapons, including the guy in the middle. Was funnier the way I interpreted it. Note how the nuclear symbol switches from black to white according to its placement in the drawing. Very nice, Rainer! This is the kind of cartoon the LA Times should use as illustration, instead of the forgettable ones it has now. It would look fine at any size, it actually has something to do with the news, and it’s a very compelling visual.

obama cartoon with democrats by eric allie from politicalcartoons.com

I saved the best for last! I was so taken by this arresting cartoon by Eric Allie that I think my heart beat faster! Wow. Turning the black coattails into a pit in hell is pretty scary. I’m not sure if this is supposed to be oil or not, but that makes it even more intriguing. I mean, why is Obama dressed up in black tie, anyway? And will the Dems suffer this badly in his wake that they’ll go under? Great cartoon, Eric.

Great job, everyone, and thanks to Politicalcartoons.com and Gocomics.com (where you USED TO see my new ones each week) for continuing to employ such talented cartoonists. Later this week: more BP oil cartoons!

Captions for Google:

Get a real job, ya freeloader! Sign: incumbent, will pander for re-election. 3 world leaders from Turkey, Iran, and Brazil toss nuclear footballs around. Graduate has to suck it up for a limited job market – set at the tailor in a department store. Obama has Democrats struggling for their lives, riding on his coattails.

My recent cartoons:

Dr. Phil on oil spill cartoon!

Comments on Dr. Phil here. (Sorry, no link now. Uclick threw away 2 years of my cartoons on Slate, Gocomics and Yahoo News when they kicked me out of Gocomics.)

Lost cartoon by d. barstow

So sad to see LOST go! Comments on Lost cartoon here. (NO LINK, read above)

memorial day ipad cartoon

Comments on grave and ipad here. (NO LINK, read above)

Thanks again to all the talented clever cartoonists I was able to include this week, and good luck for next weeks’ picks for the LA Times Opinion section!

Remember, if you want me to consider your work, the guidelines are here, as well as why I started this project: the Times needs a Los Angeles cartoon editor for the Los Angeles Times.

More cartoons:

1. June political cartoons on Obama, Helen Thomas, soccer and oil spill.
2. Editorial cartoons for the Los Angeles Times Opinion section.

Maybe I was wrong. And maybe cartoonists can help. I’ve never read editorial cartoons until about a year ago, so I had no experience to draw upon. But cartoonists leaped right into the fray, even as corpses sailed across the tv. In one sense, I guess it was brave of them(the cartoonists.) Here are some cartoons that worked, and some that didn’t. (Cartoons are after the jump.)

I originally read this story in AP, but it’s disappeared now. From Fox News:

All told, some 132 people have been pulled alive from beneath collapsed buildings by international search and rescue teams, she said.

Experts say the chance of saving trapped people begins diminishing after 72 hours. One mother still missing her children said it’s too soon to give up.

“Maybe there’s a chance they’re still alive,” said Nicole Abraham, 33, wiping away tears as she spoke of hearing the cries of her children — ages 4, 6 and 15 — for the first two days after the quake.

Oh, no worry! The entire report was copied from the AP and pasted on Puff Post as if the reporters were working for them.

Only a small number of funerals have been held since the 7.0-magnitude quake struck, with most people buried anonymously and without ceremony in mass graves on the outskirts of the city. An estimated 200,000 people died, according to Haitian government figures cited by the European Commission. The United Nations said Saturday the government had preliminarily confirmed 111,481 bodies, but that figure does not account for corpses buried by relatives.

The LA Times has word from yet another survivor found 11 days after the quake:

He told of passing out in the rubble, dreaming at times that he could hear his mother crying. The furniture in his room had collapsed around him in such a way that it created a small space for him amid the ruins of the house. He had no food. When he got desperately thirsty, he drank his urine.

Also Friday, an 84-year-old woman was said by relatives to have been pulled from the wreckage of her home, though doctors said her condition was critical.

People, don’t give up looking for survivors!!! Especially now that we have Chile with the same problem. I don’t think it’s the rescuers that give up, however, it’s the government. But miracles happen, they happen every day – (thanks to Denny on Gray’s Anatomy – I miss him so much).

I saw a lot of cartoons use this idea of the name of the country with a lot of cracks in it – get it? – the earthquake. I thought the first one was very clever – I never would have thought of it. After a few of them..But remember, most readers see just the one, in their own paper, and think their cartoonist is very clever, and don’t know that a dozen other cartoonists are doing the same concept. You can learn from the Internet, not just imitate, so let’s hope the identical ideas are just coincidence.

I thought this one by Gary Markstein from gocomics.com was better than the other similar ones I saw.

Jeff Parker from cagle.com has an easy, clear style, which I always like, but I picked this one because I was impressed with how quiet and yet effective the idea was, and it’s how most of us get through the day – thinking about something horrific, and then finally acting on it. (I picked this out yesterday, but to my great surprise, Jeff and Steve Kelley (both editorial cartoonists, and Steve is one of my favorite op-ed cartoonists – I have one of his books!) just started a new comic strip today, which isn’t political at all! More on that later.)

I am not into scratchy black and white drawing styles from the 19th century, sorry – and they look their worst online. But I thought John Deering from gocomics.com did this difficult idea well – that both the buried Haitians and the UN were having problems with no seeming help.

Mike Luckovich from cagle.com did a nice visual here. Maybe this is a cliche, or a classic concept, the hourglass, but it’s new to me, and I thought the imagery of the bodies falling to their death was powerful. Sad.

Signe Wilkinson at gocomics. com is one of my top 3 political cartoonists! Great style, color, ideas, and she hardly ever misses, which may be the most amazing part of all!

Small World by Tom Briscoe from gocomics.com is 2nd only to Ted Rall in popularity in Gocomics. I just noticed that recently, after a year in there myself. I’ve only seen Small World once or twice, but why the subscribers…? This just seems weak to me.

I’m a sucker for a good graphic! The hands outstretched is a popular motif, as you can see even from my little collection here, but the bold colors and stylistic font and careful placement of elements make this my favorite. Thanks, Deng Coy Miel from cagle.com !

Thanks to all the cartoonists, and especially to Gocomics.com and politicalcartoons.com that offer some of the best cartoonists in the world, 24-7.

More cartoons:

1. Who doesn’t hate AIG?
2. Ted Rall scolds Time Magazine for their Top 10 cartoons.

I missed the 60 Minutes interview the LA Times is talking about here. (Is that show still on the air?)

Discussing in strikingly personal terms his order to escalate the war in Afghanistan, President Obama said Sunday that sending 30,000 new combat troops was the hardest decision of his presidency so far.

Can you understand now why I get so annoyed with the Times? WTH, “strikingly personal”??? Because he said he felt bad talking to the cadets? Geez, what a revelation.

First go round of this cartoon concept.

It goes on:

Critics have said his plan is confusing and contradictory because although it calls for the new deployment, it also sets a July 2011 date to start withdrawing troops.

I don’t know about contradictory, but I’ve found that the best way to broadcast your intentions, leak your war plans, and help out the enemy is to put the details on Twitter, Mr. President.

(another version of the cartoon is after the jump)

CNN says:

In his speech Tuesday, Obama said his strategy had three objectives:

• Deny al Qaeda a safe haven

• Reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow Afghanistan’s government

• Strengthen Afghanistan’s security forces and government

I hope it works out that way. This is a DayPlanner type strategy, isn’t it.

Does this cartoon make more sense? This is the one up on Slate now, but I think I prefer the first one.

Cartoon caption: RAW MEAT. One way to make military decisions. OR Is this the sign that made Obama order 30,000 more troops?

This seemed like such an obvious cartoon idea to me that I had to rush to draw it right away, for fear some other cartoonist would have the same idea, and beat me to it!! This happens to me a lot. As it turns out, other cartoonists don’t seem to think the way I do. There have been a couple of times when I suspected they copied me – will write about this in the future.

But for this event, I’m the only cartoonist who decided that word games was the obvious corollary to declaring war! Yes, RAW on the truck in big red letters transposed easily in Obama’s office, as he sat contemplating in the Oval Office, to WAR. And as war often has casualties :(, that leaves…dead meat, or raw meat laying on the battlefield.

What is really really strange about this is that after I had written, drawn and posted it on Slate, someone pointed out that meat spelled backwards was almost team; ie, which made it read (backwards) War Team.

I didn’t even think about this, but this happens a lot with cartoons, or my cartoons. Like alchemists turning lead into gold, you have the idea, add the drawing, and then things happen. If you’re lucky.

More cartoons:

1. Turn in your red meat! Guns are okay, too.
2. I’m going to the Royal Wedding in a pumpkin.

You know who inspired me to do this cartoon? Two liberal cartoonists, Ted Rall and Rob Tornoe.  Ted writes about the war and other things making him itchy about Obama – he’s just not a fan this year! And Rob has issues with gay rights. BIG ones. I’ll post a couple of his gay cartoons later this week.

Anyway, they are just so annoyed, I felt I had to rub it in with this cartoon. :)

Cartoon caption: THE DISCOURAGED DEMOCRATS CLUB. No rich people. Obama hasn’t done any big shakes for gay rights. We’re still at war! Is Afghanistan next? Come ON, you guys! We have almost 90% employment!

Are you one of them?

I think it’s the no rich people that makes me laugh the hardest. Dems hate rich people!

More cartoons:

1. Two more cartoons I’m glad I didn’t do.
2. Something about gays, a Time Magazine un-cartoon of the week.