I put this together the other day, upon the news that Trump had straight-out asked Comey to back off the investigation, but I'll admit that, at the time, I didn't actually foresee poor ol' Sol being led to the car.

Now, well ... maybe Tom won't get him off the hook. Maybe he won't be able to, and maybe he just won't want to.

Either way, it's "only business."

Frequent readers will know this is a favorite scene. I inherited it from my father, who worked in management in the steel industry as had his father before him, and who cited it often, out of a deep contempt for the notion that immoral, heartless decisions could be justified by "it was only business."

He reached a point where he could no longer stall and deflect the orders coming out of Pittsburgh and walked away. I was never, ever prouder of anyone.

Now I think we're about to find out how many of our legislators are able to do that, and how many still faithfully leave the gun, take the cannoli and reassure themselves that it's only business.

We're still seeing the shakeout from the Comey revelations and from the appointment of a special prosecutor, but Ann Telnaes seems unimpressed so far by Paul Ryan's claim that the Republicans want justice and will follow the evidence wherever it leads.

I admire not just that she's got a cartoon out while a lot of cartoonists are hampered by deadlines and schedules but the fact that that same impatience keeps her from falling into the "well, let's see what happens ..." trap.

If you want to wait to see what happens, go sit in the audience.

Meanwhile, Telnaes has, IMHO, the sharpest pen in the industry, in large part because she pairs Pat Oliphant's much-missed intolerance for crooks and liars with a smooth, Disney-trained style that covers the blade in a sweet candy shell so that there's a moment before you feel it between your ribs.

Plus, until this moment, I did not know how well she could draw horse manure, though I was well aware of her ability to identify it.

 

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet:

Australian cartoonist David Rowe gets to draw while American cartoonists are asleep, which means he hit the ground running with this.

You may notice that there is not much of a sweet candy shell involved in his work, but he shares with Telnaes a gunslinger's twitch and, whatever advantage the time difference offered, he wasn't going to stand there waiting to see what happened next.

And I just checked and he nailed it. In fact, here's a live link which I offer in full confidence that it's not going to become outdated: The damn fool truly Will. Not. Shut. Up.

Which is fine for those of us who didn't like him in the first place, but it's got to be hard on those who did, and I say that with all sincerity. 

 

Gary Varvel penned this early in the week, before the latest revelations, but certainly matters have not changed to the point where his message is at all dulled. 

Varvel is very conservative, but his position is a considered one, not a reflex. Consequently, there is a sorrow in this piece that is touching, because people have tried so hard to believe, and Trump simply won't shut up and make it possible.

And a word on fair reading: You don't have to like Mike Pence to like this cartoon. If Mike Pence had run against Hilary Clinton, the dialogue would have been totally different and, for that matter, if Mike Pence had run against Bernie Sanders, it would have yet again been a different situation.

Varvel is a Hoosier, so he knows Pence as well as anyone, and Varvel is also an evangelical Christian, so, however he may finetune it, he's likely in synch with Pence on a number of issues. 

But the glories of Mike Pence are hardly the point. It's the scraping off of that bumpersticker's top half that makes the statement, and, as the phrase goes, "from your lips to God's ears." 

From a progressive point of view -- and this is a point I've made before -- trying to counter Trump is like fighting a drunk. Regardless of how tough he is, or what he knows about martial arts, the fact that he's drunk makes him totally unpredictable and largely impervious to pain.

I may disagree with Pence, but at least he's coherent.

And besides, if he were to find himself in the big chair, Pence would be picking up the pieces and working with a shell-shocked Congress and he'd be lucky to shepherd everyone through the next election cycle, much less advance any policies.

Bring it on.

 

Never too soon to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

Today's Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, meantime, reminded me of the disintegration of things towards the end of my college years, as the Left, which had been a mashup of the Civil Rights and Antiwar movements, totally splintered into the "What About Me?" Movement.

I remember in particular a lovely spring day in which dead bodies were sincerely, meaningfully strewn about the campus.

The snack bar was crowded, so I was sitting with a conservative football player who, having picked his way through the faux carnage to get inside, asked, "Pete, if they did end the war, what would your friends do then?"

And I laughed because he was right: The cause had long since become secondary to the vanity of flamboyant public gestures.

I replied that they'd find something else.

The Antiwar Movement had enough momentum by then that the war ended before we fragmented into selfish quibbling.

I hope, now, that the throngs from the Women's March and the March for Science can stifle those who, like Trump, don't know when to STFU and work for something greater than their own egos.

Well, let's see what happens ...

 

 

Comments

[Richard John Marcej]

Mike, I couldn't agree with you more about Ann Telnaes. Damn is she good! Not only because of her Disney-trained style that leaps off the page and puts so many others to shame, but also for her unique point of view and by not falling in step with typical talking points as many of her contemporaries have done.

With that in mind, I like to think of her as today's Walt Kelly. Yes, that drawing style is a big reason, but also for her sharp writing (BTW, just reread the Pogo collections that introduced Simple J. Malarkey and damn, not only does it still stand out but it could fit in with today's news)