The National Portrait Gallery in Washington has a new exhibit of editorial cartoonist Herblock’s cartoons. It’s entitled “Herblock’s Presidents: ‘Puncturing Pomposity,’” and it covers no fewer than than 11 American commanders in chief. Corresponding with the exhibit is an online presentation of “The Dean of American Editorial Cartoonists” works. Anyone interested in political satire should take a minute to view this fun site. Herblock, as Herbert Block signed his cartoons, won three Pulitzers, cartooned for The Washington Post for more than seven decades and, most impressively, ranked a listing on President Nixon’s infamous “enemies list.” When viewing the cartoons on the Web site, you can click on an area of the drawing for an extreme close-up and see the blue pencil lines and the corrections — the next best thing to watching Herblock as he actually drew it. It’s a window into a master’s creative process. The pompous rest a little more peacefully now that this great cartoonist is at rest himself. Thanks for puncturing them for all those years, Herb.
Talk radio host Rush Limbaugh crowed this week about the number of Republicans he convinced to vote for Hillary Clinton in Tuesday’s primaries in order to “bloody up” Barack Obama and prolong the Democratic presidential contest. This is something he is proud of?
It doesn’t appear that Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos” had much impact, though it may have helped Clinton eke out a win in Indiana. Clinton won that primary by only 14,000 votes, and 10 percent of Democratic primary voters described themselves as Republicans. Some of those Republicans voted for Obama, and some of those who voted for Clinton did so because they really supported her. However, 6 in 10 Republicans who voted for Clinton said they would vote for John McCain over Clinton in the fall, if that were the matchup, the Washington Post reported. Still, even if those voters were enough to tip the race to Clinton, she needed to win decisively in order to “bloody” Obama, and she didn’t do that.
“At the top of the list of no-brainers in Washington, D.C., should be the proposal by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., to expand education benefits for the men and women who have served in the armed forces since Sept. 11, 2001,” columnist Bob Herbert argued in today’s Opinion pages. “It’s awfully hard to make the case that these young people who have sacrificed so much don’t deserve a shot at a better future once their wartime service has ended.”
While Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton support the bill, President Bush and John McCain do not. The Bush administration argues that the benefits are too generous, would be difficult to administer and would adversely affect retention.
“This is bogus,” Herbert wrote. “The estimated $2.5 billion to $4 billion annual cost of the Webb proposal is dwarfed by the hundreds of billions being spent on the wars we’re asking service members to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. What’s important to keep in mind is that the money that goes to bolstering the education of returning veterans is an investment, in both the lives of the veterans themselves and the future of the nation.”
McCain has come out with his own bill, which would offer fewer benefits. Herbert wasn’t impressed: “Politicians tend to talk very, very big about supporting our men and women in uniform. But time and again we find that talk to be very, very cheap.”
“There are few things in American politics more irrationally ideological, more fanatically faith-based, than the accusation that Republicans are conducting a ‘war on science,’†wrote Michael Gerson of the Council on Foreign Relations. Gerson claims that this accusation is a political ploy aimed at shutting down debate. “Any practical concern about the content of government sex-education curricula is labeled ‘anti-science,’†he wrote. “Any ethical question about the destruction of human embryos to harvest their cells is dismissed as ‘theological’ and thus illegitimate.†No doubt this happens some, and the “war on science†rhetoric can be hyperbolic. On the other hand, there are plenty of scientists at the EPA and elsewhere who have complained about the Bush administration watering down or ignoring science for ideological purposes.
No, you weren’t imagining it — the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s former pastor, was all over the media last week. He even received more coverage than Obama’s opponent, Hillary Clinton, according to a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which looked at 48 major news sources, including cable and network TV shows, newspapers, blogs, radio and Web sites.
From April 28 to May 4, Wright was the subject of 42 percent of all political news stories — compared with 41 percent of stories for Hillary Clinton. He also dominated the news cycle two weeks earlier.
The Iraq war? The economy? Health care? Not as important as Wright, apparently. This wasn’t just a bad news cycle for Obama. It was nothing less than a media feeding frenzy.
All the more impressive, then, that Obama has emerged from the Wright controversy largely intact, and with strong showings in North Carolina and Indiana. He’s proved that he can weather a storm.
The lobbying tab on both sides of the coal-plant fight continues to soar, topping $830,000 from late last year through March. Compare that to the inflation-adjusted average of $805,000 in total lobbying per year in Topeka since 1992, according to a Harris News Service analysis, and you have a historic issue for the Legislature and state. About a dozen special interest groups have been involved in lobbying on the coal plants, with proponents outspending opponents 7-to-1 since January.
Some choice quotes from the Wichita City Council’s discussion prior to voting 4-3 Tuesday for a workplace smoking ban exempting bars:
- “If this ordinance was a potato, it would be a mashed potato,†said member Jim Skelton (in photo), who voted “no.â€
- “Are we going to ban stupid people from driving? . . . We can’t save everybody from everything because there’s a couple of people that think it’s the government’s job,†said member Paul Gray, a “no†vote.
- “I’m always a little fearful when The Eagle agrees with us,†said member Jeff Longwell, an architect of the ordinance.
The National Portrait Gallery in Washington has a new exhibit of editorial cartoonist Herblock’s cartoons. It’s entitled “Herblock’s Presidents: ‘Puncturing Pomposity,’” and it covers no fewer than than 11 American commanders in chief. Corresponding with the exhibit is an online presentation of “The Dean of American Editorial Cartoonists” works. Anyone interested in political satire should take a minute to view this fun site. Herblock, as Herbert Block signed his cartoons, won three Pulitzers, cartooned for The Washington Post for more than seven decades and, most impressively, ranked a listing on President Nixon’s infamous “enemies list.” When viewing the cartoons on the Web site, you can click on an area of the drawing for an extreme close-up and see the blue pencil lines and the corrections — the next best thing to watching Herblock as he actually drew it. It’s a window into a master’s creative process. The pompous rest a little more peacefully now that this great cartoonist is at rest himself. Thanks for puncturing them for all those years, Herb.
