Titanic excuse

Gov. George Deukmejian basks in elder-statesman status now — and actually looks good compared to some of the
doozies who followed — but he was a true Reagan Republican. In other words, he believed the haves should have more, and the have-nots should simply pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and magically become haves,
like all right-thinking Californians.

The most important part of commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's tragic sinking, of course, is that it gives me the flimsy pretense to post editorial cartoons about sinking ships.

I was the first editorial cartoonist to use sinking ships as metaphors for epic failure, or for our elected leaders abandoning the people they serve. OK, so maybe I was the 8,341st. Nit pickers!

Of course, Duke (as no one called him) had help in dismantling the state, from the normally unsinkable
Assembly Speaker (and former San Francisco Mayor) Willie Brown.