Editorial Explanations

Apr 20, 2012

Any Day With Big Cartoon Moneybags Is a Good Day

The government -- which Obama personally owns, in case you didn't know that -- should spend substantially less money than it currently does, in ways that Gorrell would rather not have to specify.

A Campaign to Remember

Paul Fell, 4/19/12:

Romney is doomed, of course -- incumbent Presidents never lose, not even when the economy is pretty lousy, they're black guys whom half the country thinks are Marxist Kenyan Commies, and they're running against well-funded white dudes with awesome politician hair.

Nope, he doesn't have a chance -- somebody tell the pollsters, OK?

In This World Nothing Can Be Said to Be Certain...

Scott Stantis, 4/19/12:

This is a "don't bother Our Soldiers with pissant shit" cartoon, rather than a "the violent looney-tunes who take pictures with corpses are also tax deadbeats" cartoon, because we must all Support Our Troops at all times.

Mitt Goes Off-Roading

Bob Englehart, 4/18/12:

Now, if you're going to do a cartoon referencing Romney and that ol' dog Seamus, you need to get the facts straight: there was a windbreak in front of the doggie carrier, the carrier was plenty sturdy enough, and Seamus's distress was of the intestinal variety.

So this metaphor is utterly unconnected to the story that supposedly inspired it, and just adds up to "Romney sucks," which is dull and pointless.

The Best Things In Life Are Free

Ed Gamble, 4/18/12:

Yes, Gamble really does believe that those are the categories where the government spends most of its money -- or, at least, he thinks he can convince you that it is.

The truth, though, is that most of the budget goes to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and the Military:

(chart via dummies.com)

Apr 19, 2012

Help By Walking Away, Obviously

Chuck Asay, 4/17/12:

Today's zen koan from the mighty Chuck Asay: how to "help" the indigent without "enabling" them?

Why grasshopper, the answer is as close as the sound of one hand clapping!

The Same Old Line

Chuck Asay, 4/18/12:

Oooh! Oooh! Is it "things public figures say to make people feel better that they don't mean"?!

What, you mean this isn't the $100,000 Pyramid?

Reruns, Again?

Steve Benson, 4/18/12:

Bill Maher?! What is this -- two dozen news cycles ago? And did anybody care about him then?

I guess there is something very appropriate about a pointlessly late cartoon complaining about things Maher had said long before the initial manufactured outrage.

Apr 18, 2012

As Big Ships Go, She Was Bigger Than Most

Steve Nease, 4/16/12:

This cartoon marks the first use of a new tag -- What He Said -- the meaning of which, I hope, will be self-evident.

Yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip Mum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mum

Eric Allie, 4/17/12:

Absolutely! Right-wingers want women to stay home and take care of their children, which is why they demand higher levels of aid for families and want to abolish work requirements for welfare.

Don't they?

Hey Macarena!

Michael Ramirez, 4/17/12:

Every government official is required to work twenty-four hours a day, and to never be -- even in their least guarded moments -- less than utterly serious.

Unless you're a male Republican, of course, and then you can go hunting and shoot lawyers all you want.

I Wanna Guard Your Life

Chuck Asay, 4/17/12:

That's right -- Romney's record in government, running Massachussets, is so similar to Obama's record as President that the best metaphor for the two of them is a find-the-tiny-difference set of pictures.

Not the angle I expected Asay to take, I have to admit....

Apr 17, 2012

Rawhide Speaketh!

Michael Ramirez, 4/16/12:

Didn't just want to -- Reagan actually did raise taxes eleven times. And made a nuclear arms deal with the Communist "Evil Empire." And worked smoothly with a Democratic-dominated Congress to compromise and pass useful legislation.

And, not to put too fine a point on it, governed substantially to the left of current Republican dogma, idolatry nonwithstanding.

Blue Man Group

Ron Rogers, 4/16/12:

Pray tell, is that supposed to be "Breach," as in Security Breach?

Or is it really "Breech," as in the kind of baby that comes feet-first?

Either way, if anyone detects a joke, please let me know.

Actually, We Call It "The Tragedy of the Commons," But This Isn't It

Phil Hands, 4/16/12:

This cartoon might, perhaps, make a clear political point if we knew exactly who that guy represents.

Is he Big Business, lobbying Congress to give him ever-more tax breaks?

Or is he J. Random Taxpayer, pigging out on the mortgage deduction and increased allowances for his growing number of children?

Or is he supposed to be Congress itself, which is the only body that actually can "eat all it wants" of the tax breaks and credits that it creates by law?

I wonder if Hands knows which he is? Maybe, if we ask nicely, he'll tell us.

Apr 16, 2012

Keep On Truckin'

John Deering, 4/13/12:

Definition of bad luck: the one day in her life Ann Romney works outside the home, a runaway truck smashes the building.

Is it any wonder she'd rather stay at home and ride up and down in the car elevator all day?

Gun Control

Michael Ramirez, 4/14/12:

Remember: if someone has visited your house more than a specific number of times, you're legally responsible for all of their actions forever more.

On a related topic: how come I haven't seen a "Real Housewives"-themed Ann Romney cartoon? I can't be the only person who thinks it's obvious, can I?

"Women Want Men To Stop Asking Dumb Questions Like That." -- Freud

Chuck Asay, 4/14/12:

Exactly! Republicans offer women jobs -- at whatever prices employers deign to pay, after the minimum-wage laws are eviscerated and unions are eliminated, without any health care or benefits -- while all Democrats can muster up is something silly like "fairness."

No wonder there's an eighteen-point gender gap in the Presidential race!

War On Women: The Second Front

Joel Pett, 4/15/12:

If you think political debates get nasty and vicious, you haven't seen what the stay-at-home-mom/working-mom fight entails. Stay as far away from it as you can.

(I'd make a crack about "supervising the nanny is a job, too!", but it's entirely possible that Ann Romney actually made sandwiches for her sons herself -- like a poor person! -- while Mitt was racking up those hundreds of millions running companies through the Bain Capital shredder.)

Quixote Thought the Windmills Were GIANTS, Dummy!

Michael Ramirez, 4/13/12:

Technological progress never works! Americans are idiots, who are completely unable to build anything new or create new technologies. We'd be much better off stopping trying to make things, and just turn all our efforts into resource extractions, and leave the smarter countries to do the innovating.

Gonna Need a Bigger Boat

Adam Zyglis, 4/15/12:

The social "safety net" -- the metaphor of the social programs benefiting the poor, such as food stamps, housing aid, and direct cash payments -- is an actual net, which Congressman Paul Ryan has recently realized could be put to a more capitalistically beneficial use, such as catching fish.

This, sadly, has bad consequences for the poor, who are balding men falling from a great height into the sea -- not women or children, as one might expect, since they're the vast majority of recipients of these programs -- who will now drown in the waters of...now, what would the water be in this metaphor? The economy in general?

Apr 13, 2012

We Don't Like Your Types Around Hyar!

Chuck Asay, 4/12/12:

If you work for the government, you just "don't belong."

First-Class Quality at Steerage Prices!

Lisa Benson, 4/12/12:

The entire US is embarking on a journey across the Atlantic, where we will strike an iceberg -- marked "Kenyan Marxism," if I know Benson -- and then sink, killing a disproportionate number of the poor and unconnected and creating fodder for sentimental claptrap for at least the next century.

But Benson is particularly upset that rich people are being asked to pay more for their fancy accommodations on board that ship, which makes me think she hasn't thought through her metaphor quite as much as she should.