Dianne and Pete, sittin' in a tree …

Another ode to Oliphant:

Though not alone, Pat Oliphant is one of the best editorial cartoonists at capturing the essence of the public figures he pillories. He whittles down each victim in short time to visceral visual shorthand. Each becomes a vessel into which Oliphant pours in his idea of who the person is, not just what s/he looks like.

President Reagan began, under Oliphant's pen, a collection of sharp lines that lampoon his lionization as a silver screen idol. (Of course, Oliphant's caricature of Reagan began when Reagan was California's governor with eyes on the White House). In the end, Reagan became a juicy squidge signifying an oily pompadour, and two dots for eyes atop a crooked squiggle for a nose and a long chin.

The gubernatorial candidates show off their new personae.

Spartan, but devastating. President Clinton received the same two dots for eyes, a bulbous nose and a big chin, which sometimes morphed into W. C. Fields. President George H. W. Bush got a pinched face and often carried a purse; his son mostly showed up as a little boy in big boots and cowboy hat, asking Vice President Dick Cheney what to do.

Garry Trudeau, creator of Doonesbury and presumably unable to draw caricatures, instead depicted Bush No. 1 as empty air, and George No. 2 as empty air or a floating asterisk under a cowboy hat or Mars' battered helmet.

I was trying to be like the big boys here, establishing a relationship with my characters and turning them into symbols that would amplify my point. The cartoon atop literally shows how I went about that transformation with Pete Wilson and Dianne Feinstein, then vying for governor.

Outta my head, Oliphant! You can see Patrick Oliphant's influence in caricature, angle and
general bugaboo portrayal.

Of course, it implied I'd be drawing these two many times and would need this shorthand. This marked early days in my efforts to become an editorial cartoonist, and I expected to learn how to convey more nuanced opinion. It's a difficult trick, especially with state politics, to lampoon people and issues when readers might not even be aware of either.

These offer rather generic viewpoints: politicians are buffoons who defer to lobbyists and blame each other rather than solving problems. Nothing to see here, folks. But I like to think I was getting better.

Re(Pete)ing rifle

It's probably not smart to make fun of a Marine …

Oh, the many gifts last week's Republican National Convention gave us! We got to see Clint Eastwood overplay his persona in one inglorious, ignominious moment. We oohed and ahhed to vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan's ghost stories around the Big Tent campfire.

And, per the Republican convention's convention, I got to dust off Pete Wilson.

California's multi-term governor and U.S. Senator re-emerged in Tampa as a senior statesman. Given what followed Wilson's time in office, in the state and nation, his anti-immigrant, tough-on-crime stance looks moderate now. And sane. Discourse and compromise across party lines; what a bygone concept.

After awhile I began drawing Pete Wilson's featureless face with Orphan Annie eyes, and
Dianne Feinstein more like Betty Boop.

The convention also blew dust off the term "happy warrior," applied this time to Ryan. I'm not sure how this term bubbled into politics, or whether it comes from William Wordsworth's poem. Both parties have used it — lavished alike on Hubert Humphrey, Ronald Reagan and assorted congress folk and state legislators. Wilson used it for himself running for governor against Dianne Feinstein.

To me it means an errand runner, giddily pushing party over policy. Maybe that's what it means to each party, too.

• Why exactly is John Burton, California's Democratic Party chairman, apologizing this week for likening Ryan's convention speech and some key Republican campaign statements to Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels' so-called "big lie" tactics ("tell a lie often enough and it becomes fact …")?

For one thing, bombast is Burton's bailiwick. For another, it was one of those insincere, "I'm sorry if anyone was offended" apologies. For yet another, he's not the only one making this association.

For still another, isn't it true? Republicans aren't alone in this, just the latest with the mostest (though the Democrats are convening now, so stay tuned). Ryan's intentional deceit during his floor speech is breathtaking in its bald-faced boldness, right there for fact checkers to vet. My best guess is that he preached to the crowd, which didn't care if he was lying or bending truth to breaking.

Maybe the most egregious lie Republicans repeat on the campaign is that President Obama has weakened the work requirements for people receiving public assistance under the Welfare Reform Act. The statement lives like a zombie, blundering past repeated attempts to show it's plainly false.

Maybe it's the Nazi connection that offends, or triggers foes to pretend offense; though I agree that pundits and celebrities and political propagandists play the Nazi card too often and inappropriately, here it connects, however unfortunately.

Incomparable, of course, to the unthinkable barbarity on Goebbels' agenda, but the process is the same, isn't it? Say a lie, say it again, say it again, let people talk themselves into thinking they heard what you said from somewhere else, layering it with legitimacy until it becomes the thing people believe. People act on their belief, which is to vote for the liars, and maybe take lengths to keep others from voting for the other candidate. Bonus!

Pot, kettle; kettle, pot. Fight on, happy warriors.

Mr. Brown is upside down

Monument to the Old School politician. In these and the following, you can see Pat Oliphant's influence.

Then he re-formed into Da Mayor. Note the overwrought Ethics watchdog
in the top two cartoons.

I just read that a preparatory school named after Willie Brown, in San Francisco's under-served Bayview neighborhood, is closing because it could not deliver on its academic promise to students. In fact, it was one of the state's worst-performing schools.

It's too bad because, despite the former Assembly speaker and  San Francisco mayor's many faults and flaws, I think it's safe to say he looked out for the people he served.

Willie Brown was the target of many of my editorial cartoons, and if any of the Powers that Be ever even saw my cartoons, he would have cared the least. By far. He would have said "So what?!" because he bought weapons-grade Teflon®™, not the flimsy stuff Reagan wore. Nothing could bring Willie down, not scandals, ethics investigations, not even the Kryptonite that fells every other politician: Term limits. He just decided he'd like to be "Da Mayor" of The City, and took the job.

Brown was an Old School politician, no doubt having learned at the knee of his Assembly speaker predecessor Jesse Unruh, famous for two Old School quotes: "Money is the mother's milk of politics," and, about lobbyists, "If you can't eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women and then vote against them, you have no business being up here."

Even John Wayne couldn't do this. This was for what I believed was a
syndicate. That chicanery deserves its own future blog post.

That was Willie Brown, taking as much as he could, pushing the political envelope, and always seeming to one step ahead of his enemies.

Ethics investigations and FBI stings couldn't do it: He managed to elude any dragnets that ensnared others in his party.

Even those in his party couldn't get to him.

Lawmakers tried redistricting to nibble away at Brown's power. Nope, that didn't work, either.

et tu, Assembly?

Of course, I could be using the Bayview School's closing as an excuse to run my Willie Brown cartoons. Which is why I strongly encourage President George Herbert Walker Bush, former governors George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson,
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, former Attorney General John Van de Kamp, and anyone still bumbling about from the Reagan and Bush I administrations, to begin tweeting inappropriate pictures of themselves immediately.

George Deukmejian, Willie Brown, former Sen. Pro Tempore David Roberti … all part of that long tradition
of getting served by …  I mean, serving the people.

Looking for the right script

Hollywood pals and other assorted top-shelf Beautiful People last week threw Gov. Schwarzenegger a lavish "Wrap Party" to commemorate his exit from the top of the State.

It occurred to me that maybe this is what Gov. Schwarzenegger thinks he has done: Wrapped up one more movie role to advance his career, endearing himself once again as the action hero. With the final scene shot, he must think that all the casualties of his time as governor will simply get up off the ground, collect their SAG fees and go home … that craft services will deliver all the leftover tri-tip and veggie-tuna wraps to the Union Gospel Mission … that the carpenters will repaint and patch all the stage sets … and everything will be all better again.

He's not alone to blame. But lawmakers are smart enough never to promise anything beyond running for another office once the offices they hold term out. Schwarzenegger came in promising he'd pull us out of the hole Gray Davis left; instead his gang brought shovels and dug deeper.

We used our power to vote unwisely (or not at all) on the novelty of electing another movie star to high office, and weren't prodding our representative government to represent.

Schwarzenegger as governor never seemed more than a practical joke that he and Jay Leno dreamed up to guarantee at least two blockbuster bookings for his show: When Schwarzenegger threw his hat into the rink seven years ago (was it that long ago?) and this year when he retrieved it. We voters bought into the gag.

Don't be surprised if Schwarzenegger eventually casts about for the role of president. (Remember when we all thought that might be feasible? Just a matter of tweaking the Constitution, and if some conservative cranks think they can fiddle with the Fourteenth Amendment, what could be so hard?) He'll wear this mess as his crown of laurels, spun by well-paid publicity.

(Since I started cartooning during George Deukmejian's administration, Gov. Schwarzenegger is the governor I've drawn the most — by far — and that's without even trying hard. The difference is that many nonpolitical clients —witness the previous post — harnessed the Governator's notoriety. It makes sense: An ad featuring Pete Wilson's featureless caricature won't get you much mileage. )