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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forumsoasis
(49,398 posts)sandensea
(21,650 posts)Frankly, I don't know which are worse.
oasis
(49,398 posts)Until now.
sandensea
(21,650 posts)This esteem was shaken pretty badly by Dubya; but never before seriously questioned. We've just never had a president globally understood to be a mere bribed puppet of a foreign despot.
Everyone I've run into from overseas sees that - although they all agree on one key point:
This is only temporary.
alterfurz
(2,474 posts)...and you have Trump today." -- former Reagan advisor Bruce Bartlett
burrowowl
(17,644 posts)smirkymonkey
(63,221 posts)malthaussen
(17,215 posts)... or if standards have changed since 1973.
-- Mal
May 1, 2014
By Maren Williams
Last week, the Washington Post finally ran a Doonesbury strip that its editors vetoed in 1973. At the Posts own Comic Riffs blog, columnist Michael Cavna examined the Watergate-era context of the strip, the papers rather weak justification for its decision at the time, and the reactions of readers and Doonesbury creator Garry Trudeau.
In May 1973, the scope of the Nixon administrations involvement in the previous years break-in to Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel was not yet fully known. Many on the left were calling for the heads of high-ranking officials, including former Attorney General and Nixon campaign manager John Mitchell. Garry Trudeau, then a 24-year-old relative newcomer to the nations comic pages, lampooned the bloodlust with the Doonesbury strip above, in which liberal radio commentator Mark Slackmeyer rabidly proclaims Mitchell guilty, guilty, guilty!!
More than a dozen of the 300 newspapers that carried Doonesbury at the time opted not to run the strip, concerned that such a statement of Mitchells guilt would compromise their journalistic integrity even on the funny pages. Trudeau was already accustomed to a few editors spiking his strips here and there, but never so many at once. He was even more surprised, he said, that the paper which took the lead in reporting on the Watergate scandal shied away from discussing it in the comics especially since the strip was not actually commenting on Mitchells guilt or innocence, but rather on those who were obsessed with seeing him prosecuted. Trudeau told the New York Times that [m]y highest priority is entertainment. I wasnt saying John Mitchell was guilty. It was a parody on all the people who are over-reacting.
In the end, though, both Trudeau and the Mark Slackmeyers of the world were vindicated:
Two years later, Trudeau would win the Pulitzer Prize for his Watergate commentary including his stonewalling White House strips making Doonesbury (its profile raised by each news article about such controversies) the first comic strip ever to win the editorial cartooning prize. And two years after that, Mitchell found to be guilty would begin serving a 19-month prison sentence.
More: http://cbldf.org/2014/05/spiked-doonesbury-strip-runs-in-washington-post-after-41-years/
n2doc
(47,953 posts)csziggy
(34,136 posts)It wasn't until the book came out that my friends and I could read all the strips from that period. It certainly made a difference reading them all!
Gothmog
(145,481 posts)Hekate
(90,769 posts)love_katz
(2,583 posts)Love this. Not loving the events, but loving that it's all being exposed.
love_katz
(2,583 posts)Right on target.
not fooled
(5,801 posts)our country learned nothing. Letting another puke asshole get within stealing distance of the White House (and yes, Nixon did win the election but only because his campaign made a secret deal with the North Vietnamese to extend the war so that the Democrats wouldn't be able to end it during Humphrey's candidacy. I.e., Tricky Dick committed treason to get elected).
BigmanPigman
(51,623 posts)the book "Even Revolutionaries Like Chocolate Chip Cookies" selected cartoons from "Still a Few Bugs in the System". It is a mix of strips from 1970-72...a classic in my opinion. As an artist I love looking at the changes in Trudeau's style over the years.