Saturday, March 31, 2007

Damn Pictures

“Stop them damn pictures. I don't care what the papers write about me. My constituents can't read. But, damn it, they can see the pictures."

So complained Boss Tweed, the corrupt head of the corrupt Tammany Hall machine that ran New York City politics for parts of three centuries, about the first and best political cartoonist of all, Thomas Nast.

His point was that a political cartoon says more than any number of investigative news articles, editorials or Fox News Channel fairy tales. There was one such cartoon this past week, by Nick Anderson of the Houston Chronicle, that needs no further elaboration.

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