Bob Gorrell offers one of many conservative takes on White House leakage. As I've noted before, the shenanigans of the Trump administration have alienated a lot of the GOP's regular supporters, and Gorrell tends to be conservative.
In this case, he's also being responsible and accurate, which makes his work stand out, and that's a shame.
The Prime Directive keeps me from giving examples, but anyone who looks through editorial cartoons can find them readily enough: A number of right-wing cartoonists are actually blaming the Democrats for the leaks, apparently in the belief (A) that Democrats are to blame for anything bad that happens and (B) that Trump filled his White House staff with liberal Democrats.
Now, granted, there are some leaks of information coming out of Congress that could be the work of Democrats, and that would be a natural assumption, though responsible political commentary does not to rely on assumptions.
Meanwhile, I am less impatient with rightwing fringe cartoonists who reflexively bash Democrats for everything than I am with lazy, centrist cartoonists who riff on partisan talking points that a relatively bright seventh grader with access to Google News would dismiss in 10 minutes.
And, by the way, that is a double-edged sword: There are also liberal cartoonists who doodle away on foolish assumptions that don't hold water.
But specific to leaks, blaming the Democrats is not simply lazy but denies an important part of our current crisis.
I was reading an article the other day -- probably from the Washington Post, possibly from the Atlantic -- about the dysfunction within the White House, and about a third of the way through, I thought to myself that the level of detail made it sound as if the reporter had open access to a fully cooperative staff.
The particulars, however, made it absolutely clear that this was nothing the administration wanted to see dragged out into the light.
Other articles and a number of seasoned observers have noted that the amount of leakage coming from the White House, the intelligence community and other sources is an indication of how much distress there is within the walls of Castle Trump.
Happy people, people who feel they are on the right side of history, people who feel their work is rewarding and worthwhile, do not leak to the press.
That's your story. And Gorrell nails it today. Whether he feels good about that or bad about it is not the point.
Again, as with the blustering nonsense of Saddam Hussein and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Trump's boastful declarations are not intended to be consistent or accurate, but, rather, are put out there to stir up his partisans, like cheers at a pep rally.
The question for editorial cartoonists is whether they are referees or cheerleaders, patriots or partisans.
The Sisterhood of the Ovulating Superhero
Keith Knight spoofs the outrage over women-only screenings of Wonder Woman in (th)Ink, and the cartoon leaves me with more to ponder than I suspect he intended.
On the one hand, I laughed, because I'm hostile to men's rights types, based on my experience as a single dad.
A few years after my divorce, I tried to form a men's group to talk through our issues, but it only took about four meetings before we became infested with macho dudes who wanted to boast about their conquests or simply vent their misogyny.
Most were simply foolish distractions who sidelined intelligent conversations, but one who complained that nobody lets you hold your kids responsible turned out to be doing that by holding his daughter by the throat and banging her head against the wall.
And I was also on a family law listserv that degenerated into psychotic rants by similarly abusive jackasses.
Which left me in that "known by the company you keep" dilemma.
So I look at a "women-only" screening of Wonder Woman and think it's a stupid idea, but I don't object because that would number me with the fools.
This is not cool. We ought not be forced to align with abusive, misogynistic jackasses on one side or, on the other, SJWs who blame all evil on white men.
However, in this case, my objection is that I simply think it's poor marketing: If -- as early reviews suggest -- Wonder Woman is a credible superhero film, if superheroes can be female as well as male, then the film shouldn't be sold as a chick-flick, and I think it's legitimate to ask how people would respond if a movie with a POC superhero were marketed with similar screenings.
Point being, why would the studio want to force a potential blockbuster into a niche?
I suspect the real misogynists are not the permanent adolescents whining over these screenings, but the suits who assume that a movie with a female hero is therefore a female movie.
But then I'm just an old guy anyway
Wallace the Brave brings up eye black at a time when I happened to be noticing it.
There is some doubt whether a black smear on your cheekbones will reduce the glare during a game. Apparently, it does, probably, sometimes, but perhaps not enough to make a huge difference.
What I have noticed, however, is that this gag isn't far off the mark: Eye black has gone from a smear on the cheekbone to full warpaint, with some athletes wiping it over their entire faces below the eyes.
It came to mind recently because I've been watching the NCAA Softball Tournament and not all the young women wear eye black, while a lot of those who do simply wear the smear on the cheekbone.
What struck me was that those who go the warpaint route are much more precise than their NFL counterparts and don't simply wipe it all over themselves.
Still, neither the football or softball players are going full-"Cats."
So far.
Ha, I know that comic!
Posted by: Will Henry | 05/31/2017 at 02:36 PM