Dumbo -- Is That YOU?!?

Bill Day, 12/12/11:

Important pro cartoonist tip: if there's no specific news story to comment on, and you still need to turn in a cartoon to get your paycheck, just do a really over-the-top caricature of whoever you hate the most at the moment.

It's almost the same as a real editorial cartoon!

When It Absolutely, Positively Has To Be There Someday

Dave Granlund, 12/9/11:

It's true, the US Postal Service doesn't have any services that guarantee delivery within specific timeframes. Pity -- that's a service you'd think that people would like.

Bah Humbug?

Ann Cleaves, 12/10/11:

Unless that fellow is a particularly young and bright-eyed Ebeneezer Scrooge, I got nothin'.

Protesting Too Much

Phil Hands, 12/9/11:

No other state -- let alone the federal government! -- would ever dream of requiring a permit for a demonstration, or requiring groups to do anything other than show up wherever they want and start screaming.

A Big Desk To FIll

Joel Pett, 12/9/11:

Pett is trying to tentatively note that the facts from the first six panels of his cartoon will have no effect on the campaign envisioned in the last one.

But I'm more concerned about Kathleen Sebelius -- assuming that's meant to be her -- since she's barely able to see over her desk. Is she a particularly tiny person, or does the HHS have outlandishly large office furniture?

Another Head-Scratcher

Gustavo Rodriguez, 12/9/11:

I have only a few questions:

• Who is that witchy-looking woman supposed to be? Is she and her cohort supposed to be the flotilla?
• Who is she talking to? He's in drab green, so does that make him the Army or government or something?
• What on earth does the drawing have to do with anything?
• Is there some secret metaphorical meaning hidden in this cartoon, or is it just Rodriguez's pat question stuck onto whatever he felt like drawing that day?

Untangle That Metaphor!

Rick McKee, 12/7/11:

Obama's very power of rhetoric is the thing that will destroy the middle class.

Because why, that's why!

(Oh, yeah, and he's a commie Kenyan sleeper agent, too!)

One of These Things Is Not Like the Other

Matt Bors, 12/7/11:

No, no! He's not implying that Newt Gingrich molests underage boys. Perish the thought! It's just two completely unrelated things that just happen to be in the same cartoon.

(wanders off, whistling jauntily)

Today's Your Turn in the Barrel

John Branch, 12/7/11:

Aw, c'mon, Santorum and Huntsman haven't had their chances to be frontrunners yet! And Ricky S. is just as nutty as Bachmann or Cain -- he just hasn't been given his chance to shine.

(I note, also, that this seems to be the very first John Branch cartoon featured on Editorial Explanations, after nine months of intensive, daily mischief-making. His cartoons have consistently defied my efforts to make fun of them, so I must salute him for that -- of course, he only does one or two a week, which limits the number of potential targets.)

Selective Memory

Randy Bish, 12/7/11:

...because there's only a couple of dozen of them left, they're all grandfatherly guys, and Social Security is taking care of them, anyway.

But, whatever you, do, be sure to Forget  Disregard  Ignore the soldiers currently fighting in our ongoing wars, and particularly the many injured veterans of those conflicts.

One Toke Over the Line

Ted Rall, 12/7/11:

Dude! The world would be, like, so totally rad if herb was legal 'n shit! Everyone would be so mellow, and no bad stuff would ever happen again, man!

Is That Stack of Paper All of the Bills Congress Refuses To Pass?

Gary Varvel, 12/4/11:

The job of POTUS is highly site-specific; it simply cannot be done anywhere else, so the office-holder must be physically present in the Oval Office for eight hours a day just to perform his minimum functions.

Also, no sitting president before Obama ever sullied himself with raising money for his re-election!

He Consented -- What Else Do You Want?

Steve Kelley, 12/4/11:

Rich, powerful guys always do seem to think that it's consensual when they burst out naked from a bathroom and surprise a low-status woman with sex. It would be endearing if it weren't so evil and creepy.

Sure, that has nothing to do with Kelley's cartoon, here, but it's one of his patented "a couple with unlikely noses look at a newspaper while sitting on the couch" cartoons -- he probably has a template in his computer, so he can crank them out in three minutes.

Testing the Winds

Chuck Asay, 12/3/11:

"But, Chuck," you might say, "Surely you realize that every reputable scientist in climate science knows that all of the evidence -- and even a skeptical study funded by those well-known right-wing fossil fuel magnates the Koches -- has shows that climate change is really happening, and that mitigating it is the most important thing for the long-term health of the human race?"

Br'er Chuck, he don't say nothing.

"But, Chuck," you might say," What is this cartoon even about? Are you trying to say that all science is wasteful and useless?"

Br'er Chuck, he don't say nothing.

"But, Chuck," you might say," What on earth is that guy doing? And why are none of those poor black folks trying to grab the money he's throwing away?"

Br'er Chuck, he don't say nothing.

Gerrymandering Run Wild

Dick Locher, 12/2/11:

Every so often, I just post a Dick Locher cartoon -- not to explain it, because no merely mortal man can do that, but to stand back and bask in the glow of its bizarre lunacy.

Today is one of those days.

The Family of Nations?

John Cole, 12/2/11:

Because this family wants their financial troubles to be in the newspaper, like Europe's are?

Because they hope that will make Germany swoop in and help them out, too?

Or is this just a confused way of saying "times are tough all over"?

A Lie Told Often Enough Becomes the Truth

Chuck Asay, 12/2/11:

Taxes on jobs -- such as the social security tax paid by both employees and employers -- have gone...um, wait, down over the past year.

So Obama is stealing money from "the Hiring Class" by nastily lowering their taxes?

Not the "Pure Evil" Cain You Were Expecting

Ted Rall, 12/2/11:

Having a simplistic plan to change this country's tax structure and being badly prepped on foreign-policy questions is exactly the same as "pure evil."

Also, Darth Vader works for Cain -- so there!

A Wonderful, Awful Idea

Charlie Daniel, 12/1/11:

I assume that this cartoon is saying that, given the recent flood of statistics about the poor and near-poor in the US, this goonish-looking fellow is going to steal Christmas even before the Grinch could.

And that, of course, would completely ignore the actual message of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," viz., that Christmas is not a thing that can be stolen in the first place.

So let's hope Daniel had some other message, though I have no clue what that might be.

Zeno's Paradise

Tom Toles, 11/30/11:

This cartoon raises the unexpected thought: If "Europe" consisted only of Germany, as it seems to do here, how would it be in financial trouble?

I Refuse To Be Healthy If the Government Wants Me To!

Paul Fell, 11/20/11:

That's a totally bogus comparison: everyone knows that cars are far more important than people!

As Always, a Payne Cartoon Has an Impressive Car In It

Henry Payne, 11/29/11:

Every single "occupy" protestor who doesn't immediately move to Alabama and a take a minimum-wage back-breaking job is nothing but a poser.

Bet'cha thought Payne had forgotten about the dirty hippies, didn't ya?

That's My Jam!

Lisa Benson, 11/29/11:

Benson is old enough to know what a single used to look like, but not old enough to remember that they were less than four minutes to a side.

Alternatively, she thinks a comparison with the Great Depression will cause the American people to embrace the great Republican policies of Hoover and Coolidge.

Janet! Dr. Scott! Janet! Brad! Rocky! Ugh!

Pat Bagley, 11/30/11:

I presume this is one of those uberlocal cartoons that are opaque to most of us, but I have to ask:

Bagley cartoons for the Salt Lake Tribune, so doesn't he already have a home-town boy in the race, that being the utterly-forgotten-because-he-seems-mostly-sane Jon Huntsman?

The Only Jobs That Count Are in Resource Extraction, Take Thirty-Seven

Michael Ramirez, 11/29/11:

Obama's secret plan for getting the US to full employment -- which is, of course, a sneaky Communist/Kenyan/socialist/Nazi/Whig/Zoroastrian plot of the one world UN black helicopters -- involves shooting as many of them as he can reach personally.

No matter how much you hate Obama, you can't possibly hate him as much as Ramirez does.