With higher costs, a $4.4 billion state deficit and declining revenue…NY State Legislators are trying to sneak in a pay raise. I suppose they could make a good case that better salaries will attract higher caliber candidates for the legislature…

Hmmm….So I got back from Washington and was pretty much out of my groove and uncharacteristically unprepared for drawing a cartoon on Monday. I think there was a glimmer of something in this cartoon (all the Democrats I know seem to feel torn about Obama/Hillary) but I don’t think it was a particularly successful piece. I had another idea (below), but my editor preferred the one I finally inked above and I didn’t love either enough to fight him on it. Which one would you have picked?

I haven’t posted any cartoons for a few days, as I was luxuriating in DC for a panel discussion on political cartooning hosted by The National Archives with Ann Telnaes, Clay Bennett and Pat Oliphant. The discussion was nicely moderated by Stephen Hess, of the Brookings Institution and was the best panel discussion I’ve been on to date. When we were ushered down past the empty 300 seat auditorium to the Green Room, we all swallowed hard at the thought of the place being equally as empty once we re-emerged. Except that when we strode onto the stage a half hour later…the place was jammed. There were people sitting on the stairs at the edges and standing in the back!
At first, my eyes darted warily at the thought of talking politics in a government building, but was reassured by the organizers that The Constitution itself was residing majestically upstairs – can’t think of a better comeback than that. The discussion was wide ranging, from Pat Oliphant hopelessly trying to duck charges that he deliberately drew a hokey cartoon just to win a Pulitzer back in 1967 – To the future of political cartooning, which Steve Hess believes is in animation and I don’t. Animation is great, but people tune it out if it’s not entertaining…I love it, but there’s no substitute for “the contemplative art of the still cartoon” as Oliphant so eloquently put it. The consensus (I think) was that animation is a separate artform that will take its rightful place in the political commentary arena, but not at the expense of the powerful still image. To their extreme credit, a couple of familiar cartoonist faces were spied in the audience, notably Nate Beeler of The Washington Examiner and Matt Wuerker of the Politico. Tom Toles didn’t show (but you’ll be comforted to know that I gave him a hard time over lunch the next day…)

My Brother-in-law took these pics (thanks Alex) so I thought I’d throw them up here for added interest. The first one shows a remarkable back of the head shot of Pat Oliphant and Ann Telnaes, with the three geezers to the right being Clay “no tie” Bennett, me, and Stephen Hess. Here we are trying desperately to decipher one of my cartoons.

And this one shows the crowd to the left side of the auditorium…As you can see, the National Archives is a pretty nicely decorated place! Amazing what you can do with a little taxpayer money, huh?

There’s “a piece in The New York Times today”:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/04/business/media/04mad.html?_r=1&oref=slogin about how Mad Magazine recruited some editorial cartoonists to draw cartoons for a “Mad Expose on why George Bush is in favor of Global Warming.” Yeah…The title/concept is a little unsophisticated, but I grew up reading Mad Magazine (who didn’t ?), so when they called to ask if I would participate, I was very flattered and thought what the heck.

Here’s what I drew (they supplied the caption, and then asked the cartoonists to illustrate…)