Swan Song for the Bush Bashers - Cartoons and Commentary

All of these cartoons were created using the free program at Toondoo.com

To paraphrase the late Gerald Ford, 'Our long national nightmare is over...'

Well, soon to be over, anyway. By this time next year the United States will have a new President, and when a President leaves office, he is no longer good cannon fodder for the pundits.

Sometimes I think George W Bush would have approved a 'King of America' post for himself, had he been able to circumvent the Constitution.

As the Presidency of George Bush finally draws to a close, many Bush-bashers are beginning to suffer withdrawal symptoms. Dubya's policies make it easy for anyone to poke fun at him.

And many did.

The only difficulty was deciding which subject to pick for the Daily Slam.

There are SO many.

You could go for the Big Wall With Mexico subject. Or Guantanamo, or the war, or any number of other items. If you're keeping a list of the bad decisions made by the Bush Administration in the last eight years, you'd better have a large-economy-size notepad in your pocket, 'cause brother you're gonna need it.

Cartoons are good. They present issues simply, and try to use humor to make a point, to help you to understand the underlying truth about something. Or maybe they entertain AND inform. I'm not sure, but I know they are fun to create.

After I signed up at Toondoo and learned how to work the panels and characters, the rest was easy. I slammed on Tom Cruise and Scientology, Michael Vick, and others. I had God standing on the Moon in one panel, telling the bitching people on Earth that he only built the place, and it was up to us to keep up the maintenance. In truth, I don't believe the traditional Creation story, but I sort of liked the idea of 'God Talks Back'.

However, I always returned to doing more cartoons on George W. And the more sound bites and poor decisions I saw him make, the more I wanted to point out some flaws in his thinking.

Simple stuff, mostly. Like people matter. Or that we shouldn't send our volunteer-only military off to fight costly foreign wars. Or maybe when an entire city gets flooded out, that our President should step up to the plate and do something about it.

The one item that bothers me most about the Bush Presidency isn't his handling of the economy, gas prices, or even the war in Iraq.

It's his response to basic human rights. Our President should not condone the use of torture, suspected terrorist or not. Once you start doing the same stuff (waterboarding, for example) as the Khymer Rouge used to do, you have a problem with your moral center.

I sat down one day and tried to think of just ONE BIG THING that the Bush Presidency accomplished. I don't mean some ridiculous assertion that he 'helped stop terrorism' or 'got revenge for 9-11', both of which are not true, anyway. Just give me one positive thing history can look back on about his Presidency and say THIS was a good thing. Education...the economy...more freedom for the average American...ANYTHING.

I couldn't think of a damn thing. And that's a shame. Even with some of our lesser-known, or perhaps not-as-effective Presidents, there was usually SOMETHING positive in their Presidency.

I don't know. Maybe I missed it on the evening news. 'Bush does THIS...and it really helped America, folks!'

I have nothing to fill in the blank for 'this', unfortunately.

So, to help relieve my frustration over the events of the last eight years, I made cartoons.

And as I did, I kept hoping for just ONE good thing from a two-term President.

'No Child Left Behind' would have been nice. Or how about 'I decided against locking up people in a torture camp based in a Communist country. Because it's not what Americans DO.'

That would have been okay, too.

Perhaps: 'I'm asking states to put a voluntary moratorium on the death penalty. It just isn't working...'

Okay, that last one was a bit of a stretch. We all know GW rubber-stamped execution warrants in Texas.

This may be a partial reason for his insensitivity to the average American's problems while he's been President. He was governor of a state that executes people quicker than you can pop a Milk Dud into your mouth. I doubt he even read the appeals for clemency all the way through.

You know how it would go:

"Governor, John Doe has sent in his clemency request..."

"Is he guilty?"

"Yes, sir."

"Denied. Can you get me a cup of coffee?"

"Uh, yes sir..."

So, if any of you Critics of the Current Presidency want to have your say, time is running out for you. It won't be much longer before we have to move on to someone else.

Of course, I'd like it more if the next President just did his job right and I could go back to slamming on celebrities.

This is the swan song for Bush Bashers.