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he shows the same Jimmy Carter tied to the little finger of Khomeini. One of my personal favorites, a PhotoShop creation found on the Web, bears the moniker, "Bill shows Hillary porno."  It may not be a fair caricature of the former President, but it does induce a strong reaction from its viewers. The cartoonist has met his audience. And that is a primary goal of a good cartoonist.
The ox may change, but the gore's the same. Cutting through the pretense and posturing Staying true to this tradition, The Wizard of Whimsy cuts through the pretense and posturing, the role-playing and platitudes, the glad-handing and Bible-thumping, to reach the rough wood that lies beneath the veneer of our current President. The picture which emerges is far more complex and layered than what one might at first expect. In the gallery labelled "Mentors," Bush is shown as a child, learning his life lessons at the knees of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove. His eyes light up in wonderment. Some say that even today, the President relies on Cheney and Rove, Rumsfeld and Rice, to form and frame his own judgments and decisions. Some suspect that therein lies the reason these players |
cannot be held accountable for
their actions, and instead receive immunity from the consequences
of their misdeeds.
The depiction of The President in the "Gekkos" gallery is quite different. There he is shown as a master manipulator, a partisan in the crusade to redistribute wealth to the already wealthy, a white shirt warrior intent on smashing the hopes of a hapless middle class. And his mouth takes on a nasty bend. Finally, in "Fops," he has none of that guile. He proudly preens on the "Stallion of State," postures at the door of Air Force One, and plays the clown in the United Nations ("Bozos"). He is a twenty-first century leader in the early nineteenth century habiliments of Napolean. Does the Wizard suggest that his mind is lost in that same century long past? Such an array of depictions. Can they all be simultaneously true? Do they not create their own self-contradictions? Perhaps yes, yet on reflection, they seem capture the very complexity of the man. One can challenge the accuracy of this picture. One can bemoan the of the assault on the nation's elected leader. One cannot doubt, however, the strength of the Wizard's attack. The President's cronies, nannies and fautors get little better treatment. Condoleeza Rice is booted out in an Aunt Jemima head scarf; Donald Rumsfeld is shown with blood on his hands, blood on the curtains (a conceit Herbert Block (Herblock) used to portray Joseph McCarthy fifty years earlier in the Washington Post, March 4, 1954. Drawn & Quartered. p. 107); Michael Powell is a fat Jabba; Attorney General John Ashcroft bears a snarl on his face. Only Colin Powell, one of America's great heroes, escapes the depredations of the mighty mouse (The Wizard does not use paper and pen for this work). His fautors (a word ripe for reintroduction into the English lexicon) do no better. Limbaugh is bound in the straight jacket of his own drug addiction, while Tim Russert hikes his pants leg to a risqué height during a "Meak the Press" interview. Congressional allies and doctrinaire co-religionists wear the head gear of the Taliban. A Supreme Court Justice is depicted in drag. And Tony Blair is Weasle Dee, as his own constituents now solemnly decry. The work that follows will bring some to laughter, some to recognition, and others to rage. Few will leave the work unaffected. W. Logan Fry, Chief
Curator |
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