Old McDonald's Beauty Shoppe

Terry Wise, 5/28/11:

Now, hold on a second -- this cartoon isn't necessarily racist. It could be merely insane.

And googling "Oprah cheeseburger" doesn't help clear it up as much as one might hope.

Any plausible theories can be aired in comments -- or, hell, bizarre half-baked ones would work just as well.

When I Was a Boy...

Randy Bish, 5/31/11:

Well, yeah. Forty-four years later, you're not going to look all that good on a swing, are you?

Editorial cartoons: taking a principled stand for the obvious for two centuries.

Will He Set His Hair on Fire?

Ross Gosse, 5/30/11:

As you may have heard, noted philanderer (and possessor of one of the truly magnificent heads of hair in politics) John Edwards is being investigated by a grand jury for improperly funneling his campaign funds to paying off the mother of his illegitimate child.

What you didn't hear -- and wouldn't have connected to John Edwards even if you did -- is that the 300-year-old anchor of pirate Edward Teach (aka Blackbeard) was recently raised, and is destined to be displayed in the North Carolina Museum of History.

The two things still have nothing to do with each other...unless you remember the cartoonist's mantra: when a deadline is looming, Two Things Make a Cartoon.

First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage

Ken Catalino, 5/28/11:

This cartoon could possibly make sense if one assumes that Obama has been trying desperately to hide his involvement in Obamacare.

I also have the sense that Catalino could have gone somewhere with the "love child" theme -- the creation of which, of course, first requires that he screw somebody, which could make for a pointed cartoon -- but didn't actually connect any of the required dots to make that kind of message.

Eat Pizza, Win Tokens

Jeff Koterba, 5/28/11:

A group can be proven to have absolutely no racist tendencies merely by the presence of one minority member, somewhere within it.

And the Tea Party never had the word "Quisling" in their dictionary to begin with, since it's a foreign word.

Supply and Demand

Chuck Asay, 5/29/11:

Now, Asay isn't saying that the US should charge the descendents of slaves for bringing them, free of charge, to the Marvelous Land of Opportunity (TM). He's not saying that at all.

He's just sayin', is all....

Where Was He and What Did He Know?

Mike Lester, 5/25/11:

As an anonymous reader pointed out, Bush was on vacation on his Texas ranch on the day after Katrina hit and the levees broke -- and, one could note, Katrina was seen coming many days ahead of time, which allowed much more scope for pre-planning.

Obama, on the other hand, was on a working international tour at the time of the -- unexpected, one might note -- Joplin tornadoes.

So this is not precisely a fair comparison...but, then, when do we ever go to editorial cartoonists for fairness?

At Least He's Not Throwing Her Under a Bus

Scott Stantis, 5/27/11:

In case you weren't paying attention, the political party threatening to destroy Medicare as we know it is the Democrats.

Pay no attention to that nice Rep. Ryan and his darling plan; that's not at all what we're talking about here!

28 Electoral Cycles Later

Clay Bennett, 5/27/11:

Flee! Flee in horror from the terrifying, flesh-eating Republican!

(And embedding the image of a zombie in a "they're trying to scare you" cartoon is like the world's biggest "I'm rubber, you're glue" imaginable.)

Oh, Mama, Mama Look There!

Chuck Asay, 5/27/11:

Remember, any two things make a cartoon. If they have a word in common, even better!

Pointing out that the federal money is available because Florida's governor decided he really didn't want high-tech investment and its messy high-paid jobs in his state, or that California has had many years to build more jails to house all of the people it wants to lock up...well, that would just be petty, wouldn't it?

Remember: government is the problem. Left to themselves, the people will spontaneously create free-market bullet trains and prisons!

I Don't Want to Go Among Mad People

Clay Bennett, 5/26/11:

Now, that just isn't true.

Lobbyists have at least as much influence with the judicial and executive branches as they do with legislatures.

Amnistesia

Bado, 5/26/11:

You'd think that, after 50 years, people would learn how to spell "amnesty."

Sadly, this is not the case.

But one does have to wonder about Bado's editors....

I'll Have What He's Having

Chuck Asay, 5/26/11:

I had a reader request to feature this one, from a reader who I think wants to remain anonymous but was annoyed by the way Asay has his elephant character talk about elections "coming up" while ignoring the one that actually took place Tuesday.

That didn't bother me, honestly. As I noted the first time I commented on Asay's cartoons, back at my other blog a couple of years ago, Asay is one of the great monomaniacs, and there is no problem that cannot (in his mind) be solved by just drilling for oil more places. So this is just yet another expression of pure Asayism.

But it is cute that Asay thinks that the 2012 election will be about drilling for oil, and that the vast American public is going to be strongly in favor of more deepwater wells in places like the Gulf of Mexico. I'm not sure if that's monomania, a cynicism about the American memory, or pure craziness, but I personally doubt "drill, baby, drill" will be more than a side issue a year from now. (Medicare, on the other hand....)

And he still doesn't understand how global markets work, either.

News Flash

Nick Anderson, 5/25/11:

It's incredibly shocking when athletes already known for being insanely competitive will do shady and illegal things to win.

Folks, sports is about winning at all costs; that's the whole point of it. An athlete not willing to dope to get an edge is a quitter.

Gone With the Wind

Tom Toles, 5/25/11:

Does it make me a bad person if I find it deeply ironic that the part of the country hit by unlikely and extreme weather over the past six months is exactly that swath dominated by politicians who both deny that climate change -- the kind that produces unlikely and extreme weather -- is happening and want to refuse all government aid to people in trouble?

It does, doesn't it?

Commencement

Bill Schorr, 5/22/11:

Ha! Those young whippersnappers can't get a job because they're feckless, lazy yahoos! Why, I reckon that they wear their pants low and listen to that there "rap" music, too!

But why is the college dean/president/whoever announcing the time that graduation begins at graduation, pray tell?

Is That the Tower of Strength?

Lisa Benson, 5/24/11:

Isn't it annoying how rich white Westerners always think everything is about them?

Well, Christians are exactly the same way, only with added Crusades and Inquisitions and Raptures.

The Tweedle Boys

Charlie Daniel, 5/24/11:

Meanwhile, in Knoxville, cartoonist Charlie Daniel is making a principled, bold stand against drugs and crime!

It's a good thing there wasn't any real news, such as a devastating tornado 700 miles to the west, that kept him from such a shocking cartoon!

Adventures in NIMBY-land

John Auchter, 5/24/11:

Everyone wants to use energy, but no one wants to generate it.

And just wait until he hears about fracking!

Don't Ask About the Blind, Lame, and Halt

Steve Breen, 5/20/11:

In what kind of theology does Heaven extend to unbelievers but doesn't include the standard "brand new and perfect" body?

Or is this the discount Heaven -- believers get the whole shebang, and virtuous pagans get preferred parking and coupons for half off Purgatory?

Neighborhood Watch

Joe Heller, 5/20/11:

If you want to know exactly how smart the average American is, this cartoon provides a sobering view: the rich, accused-rapist, now-former head of one of the most powerful institutions in the world (and the leading candidate for the next French President) is "French IMF guy," while the blandly-unfaithful TV-mook Jesse James gets name-checked correctly.

Where Can I Get One of Those Machines?

John Cole, 5/23/11:

Any two facts make an editorial cartoon -- no exceptions. The less the facts have to do with each other, the better.

That's Some Leak, Honey

Ann Cleaves, 5/23/11:

You see, the Mississippi floodwaters are exactly the same as the debt ceiling, in that flood water rises up from the ground and the debt ceiling is (metaphorically) over our heads, and so the flood gushes down the too-much-spending stairs to fill up the living room of government spending.

But if we slash spending on the military and Medicaid, the Mississippi will return to its banks and we can move upstairs into the bedrooms of fiscal prudence, leaving the poor, sick, and old (and anyone the military was protecting us from) to squat on the river banks until the metaphor completely collapses.

Speaking in Tongues

Terry Wise, 5/22/11:

Obama's foreign policies -- probably primarily his two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine problem, based on the pre-1967 borders -- are so far out of the mainstream as to seem gobbledygook, as evidenced by the fact that nearly every informed expert who isn't a current elected official of the US, Israel, or the Palestinian Authority vaguely agrees with that outline.

Either that, or Wise is making a really lame, really out-of-date "Ebonics" joke...and I wouldn't put that past him.

Eye on Who?

MStreeter, 5/21/11:

Anyone else have the strange sensation that this piece, without any changes, could have run in the Onion?

Maybe I'm the only one....