From Eric Alterman's excellent blog:

I got a young man named George W. Bush in the National Guard when I was Lt. Gov. of Texas and I’m not necessarily proud of that. But I did it. And I got a lot of other people into the National Guard because I thought that was what people should do, when you're in office you helped a lot of rich people. And I walked through the Vietnam Memorial the other day and I looked at the names of the people that died in Vietnam and I became more ashamed of myself than I have ever been because it was the worst thing that I did was that I helped a lot of wealthy supporters and a lot of people who had family names of importance get into the National Guard and I’m very sorry about that and I’m very ashamed and I apologize to you as voters of Texas.

--Ben Barnes, the former Speaker of the House in Texas

Drooly Julie has some fun with attendees of the 2004 RNC.

I won’t be able to go to NYC next week, but here’s hoping we can stage a huge, peaceful demonstration like the tremendous March for Women’s Lives I attended in D.C. Over one million people of all ages attended, a huge slice of the real Middle America (not the bigoted “heartland” the Radical Right frequently refer to). Of course, the powers that be in NY are trying to do everything possible to ensure an ugly scene that will cast us in an unsympathetic light on TV.

My one piece of advice to protesters, which will doubtlessly go unheeded, is this: LOSE THE BONGOS. A vast majority of protesters will, thankfully, be bongo-free and are to be commended. But at any event like this, there will always be the dreaded drum circle, with its earnest bucket-pounding and dippy dancing. Stop it! Protests are not the place to get your groove on. The sooner the left sheds these flaky clichés, the better.

On Air America, Randi Rhodes just pointed out how little we've seen the video footage on TV of Bush reading "My Pet Goat" while America was under attack on 9-11. While I'm not a big tube-watcher, I don't get the impression that the clip went into heavy rotation. Unlike stupid stuff like, say, Dean's yell or Saddam Hussein's grody dental exam. Why not? (That's a rhetorical question.)

I've posted this link before, but The Memory Hole has the whole clip here. Much more damning than what you see in Fahrenheit 9-11.

Perhaps that should've been the title to my new book. The latest Swift Boat Liar ad condemning Kerry's criticism of the Vietnam war dovetails nicely with the gathering of Bush protesters in NYC next week. Coincidence? I think not. The radical right are licking their chops at the possibility of portraying dissent as un-American, just like their portrayal of Kerry circa '71.

I'm loath to use the term evil, since it's been so abused, but there's no other word to describe what we're up against. If this were a movie, these pricks would get their just desserts in the end, but unfortunately it's not.

Sorry dear readers, it's a "classic" Slowpoke this week -- I'm knee-deep in book preparation. On the plus side, I should have the final cover to Slowpoke: America Gone Bonkers posted here soon.

Ennui-Fest

The thought of Kerry losing to Bush under any circumstances is bad enough, but if these fallacious swift boat smear ads put Bush over the top, it would represent the ultimate triumph of immorality in American politics. As if it isn't enough of a joke already, our democracy will be rendered utterly meaningless.

So Kerry needs to run an ad saying the following:

"In 2000, the Bush campaign spread race-baiting rumors in South Carolina that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate black child. In 2002, the Republican party equated triple-amputee Vietnam veteran Max Cleland with Osama bin Laden. Now, they're lying about John Kerry's service to his country. If Bush can't run an honest campaign, how can we expect him to be an honest president?"

The wording could probably be tightened up, but you get the idea.

I'm not much of a sports fan, but I admit I do sort of enjoy watching the Olympics. Partly because it's a form of vicarious travel, and partly because the athletes are, for the most part, ordinary people instead of obscenely overpaid assholes who strut about like gods on earth. Granted, if I see one more TV commercial featuring swimmer Michael Phelps, I'll lose my mind.

That said, I've noticed that NBC's mostly non-live coverage focuses not only on events in which the US is competing (this is to be expected, I suppose), but almost exclusively on events in which the US team wins. Last night I watched the men's volleyball team rout the Dutch, and the women's volleyball team beat the Swiss. Events in which the US lost, of which there were many that day, were confined to quick video blips in the daily roundup a few minutes before midnight. Note to NBC: part of the fun of watching sporting events is the element of suspense.

It's bad enough that our news has to pass through a right-wing media filter that eliminates unpleasantries about US policy, but must we be shielded from US athletes' defeat in sporting events? Granted, this is based on my impressions from my own random viewing schedule. But I think there's something to it. On a broader level, I'm not sure this sort of coverage is helping many Americans overcome their tendency to think of this country as the center of the universe, and themselves as a superior people. The Olympics inject a rare moment of internationalism into our lives -- and yet, as usual, we focus mostly on ourselves.

A footnote: maybe cable coverage is better, but I don't have it.

I normally like to keep my cartoon an even mix of political and social commentary, but lately I can't help myself from opining on the grotesqueries of politics.

While I think it's possible for the stars to align for John Kerry, I have to confess I'm not feeling very optimistic these days. I almost can't stand to watch the next couple months unfold. It's like watching a basketball game where one team is cheating and the refs are openly biased. Not fun. Kerry needs to do something dramatic, and fast -- and that does not mean making idiotic, poll-driven statements about voting for the war in Iraq that play beautifully into Bush's hands. But I digress.

The New York Times has an excellent if sickening article today about what the Bushites have been quietly doing -- or rather, undoing -- while the media has been distracted by war and terrorism. For example:

the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration published a regulation that would forbid the public release of some data relating to unsafe motor vehicles, saying that publicizing the information would cause "substantial competitive harm" to manufacturers.

And this...

In March of 2003, the Mine Safety and Health Administration published a proposed new regulation that would dilute the rules intended to protect coal miners from black-lung disease.

And this...

In May 2003, the Bush administration dropped a proposed rule that would have required hospitals to install facilities to protect workers against tuberculosis. Hospitals and other industry groups had lobbied against the change, saying that it would be costly and that existing regulations would accomplish many of the same aims.

But workers unions and public health officials argued that the number of tuberculosis cases had risen in 20 states and that the same precautions that were to have been put into place for tuberculosis would also have been effective against SARS.

It goes on and on. This election is so clearly a matter of life and death, and these heinous bastards are firmly on the side of Death.

Of course, the massively dangerous deregulation currently underway will register nary a blip in the rest of the media. No, they'd much rather prattle on about governor who's (gasp!) gay, who had -- get this -- an affair. Hoo-wee! News you can use!

In a recent address to the National Urban League, Bush urged African-Americans not to vote only Democratic, claiming that crossing party lines might give them more "leverage." I smelled some irony, hence this week's cartoon.

Oh, and the "Bush-Cheney African-American Team" banner in the cartoon is based on something real. It's from this page on the Bush-Cheney website, which bears this title:

These people clearly have no sense of their own absurdity. I'm still looking for the "Bush-Cheney Homosexual Team."

Bush Addresses the National Urban League

I've received some rather lengthy, impassioned e-mails about my criticism of Ralph Nader, and I expect to receive some more, so I figured I would issue a reply here. First, I appreciate the letters; I'm flattered that you care enough to write. Secondly, I realize that by and large, you Naderphiles are intelligent, well-meaning, and well-informed people who don't typically skip around wearing dippy beanie hats with propellors, as depicted in my cartoons. I admit, I'm being harsh. Alas, that's the nature of political cartooning, and comedy in general.

I've seen Ralph Nader speak live, and I know how motivating he can be. He's brilliant. He speaks more eloquently about our American plutocracy than anyone else I can think of. He is saying things that desperately need to be said.

I also share your frustration with many Democrats' weakness in standing up to the Radical Right these past four years, though the injection of Howard Dean seems to have helped somewhat recently.

Why does Nader get my goat, then? Here's what I wrote to one reader:

I am deeply resentful of the fact that Nader takes my right to choose abortion so lightly that he doesn't really care whether Kerry or Bush wins (I'm beginning to think he actively wants the Dems to lose).

Bush's Global Gag Rule -- his first act in office, I believe -- forbids financial aid to reproductive health clinics in poor countries that so much as mention abortion. As a result, thousands of women are dying due to childbirth-related complications. No one talks about them. In short, this election is a matter of life and death, and Nader doesn't seem too concerned about that.

Mercury pollution is now so bad that as a woman of childbearing age I can't eat fish anymore. The Bushies are undoing a Clinton plan to dramatically reduce mercury emissions. The destruction of our environment -- and hence our health -- that will occur under four more years of Bush is unthinkable. Again, it's a matter of life and death. I could go on.

It has been suggested to me that there will be riots in the streets if Bush tries to pull anything extreme. Given what has happened so far, I don't think so. There should have been a massive uprising when the Supreme Court denied a fair and perfectly legal vote recount in Florida and installed Bush. There was not. Given the level of apathy and lack of attention to real news in this country, I'm not counting on a revolution to save us.

My cartoon simply spells out the facts: that Republican operatives are petitioning to get Nader on the ballot in several states, and funding his campaign. If Nader's not hurting the Dems, as he claims, then why are Republicans working so hard to support him?

I should add, I've received more compliments on the cartoon than complaints, and not from mainstream Dems, but genuine progressives. I'm with Howard Dean, Michael Moore, and Dennis Kucinich in concluding there's simply too much at stake. Good company, don't you think?

Here, if you haven't seen it yet.

I like how he's picked up on Bush's tendency to pronounce s's as sh -- as in, "Weapons of Mass Deshtruction."

One of Ralph Nader's arguments for running has been that he'll help Kerry by attracting more Republicans than Democrats (koff!). His campaign is now being bankrolled by Republican high-rollers and petitions to get his name on the ballot are now being circulated by Republicans. If there is ANY DOUBT in your mind that he's become a tool for the Bush campaign, you need a reality check. And if seeing Michael Moore and Bill Maher on bended knee begging Nader to quit doesn't give you pause, then what will it take?

Fifty years of the civil rights movement and thirty years of Roe V. Wade are in your hands (funny, you don't see many working-class African-Americans supporting Nader).

The Naderpublicans