CSotD: Kamala hits the ground running

(We’ll be looking at a lot of cartoons today. Please consider visiting this list of Patreons
and giving the cartoonists a little $$ to sweeten your applause.)

Drew Sheneman kicks off this review with a cartoon that might also have been the punchline at the end.

I usually flip on the news channels in the midafternoon for a little housework and dinner prep, but I really didn’t want to hear more talking heads analyzing analyzing analyzing from their ivory towers.

But then I’m not the one stepping into the spotlight, and I guess she wouldn’t do it if she couldn’t take it.

 

And, predictably, as Joel Pett notes, she’s getting it from both sides.

Attacks from the left fringe were expected, in part because her record as a prosecutor is open to criticism, particularly if you ignore everything she’s said on the topic since, but mostly because you can’t please everyone and a centrist candidate certainly won’t.

The real question is the noise-to-heat ratio and how much the chinking of grasshoppers will be amplified by the Trump camp.

 

I don’t think her baggage is anywhere near as great a burden as Michael Ramirez suggests, but this is fair commentary, particularly since he’s attached some labels to it all, though a couple of them are vague and a couple of others are things she hasn’t supported.

 

Still, Ramirez offers a more sophisticated objection than Lisa Benson’s “Nobody Likes You” argument.

Again, the spin is within reason, but I think she’s overstating the extent to which “blue hats” have to hold their noses for Biden and I’m sure she’s over the top on their feelings about Harris.

Biden doesn’t arouse those strong negatives, which is part of why many Democrats are disappointed in his nomination. The real challenge is not getting them to hold their noses but getting them fired up at all, and Harris promises to do just that.

In fact, there are a number of cartoons showing Harris at the top of the ticket with Biden as an afterthought, but Morten Morland demonstrates that it’s perfectly okay to provoke laughter with a political cartoon as long as you’re also making a point.

Now all the cartoonists who simply put her name in larger letters than Biden’s are tearing up their originals and pounding their heads on their drawing boards, or, at least, should be.

Morland just killed the category. I love every aspect of this piece.

 

Al Goodwyn offers a provocative piece, and I mean that in the good way, because there’s a lot to unpack here.

One of the raps on Harris was that she’s “ambitious,” which bears a trace of sexism, since nobody seems to fault men for that. It’s also illogical, since anyone accepting the VP slot is at least willing to be president even if they don’t slip arsenic into the boss’s coffee.

And one of the obvious issues in all this is that, whether he’s “too old” now or not, Biden will certainly be too old in 2024. It makes sense for him to choose someone who can succeed him then, even if he doesn’t expect her to have to step in sooner.

 

Steve Kelley obviously thinks Biden — a dedicated runner — is too old and feeble and aged to serve, as opposed to his opponent, who is barely four years younger, has already set a record for oldest president ever inaugurated, stumbles through his speeches, can barely shuffle down a ramp and needs both hands to drink a glass of water.

And who is screwing with both Social Security and the Medicare funding that people who genuinely need those scooters — and who vote in droves — rely upon.

Not the fight I’d pick.

 

Nor would I go into battle with Bob Gorrell‘s insistence that a colored girl who happens to be a Senator and former attorney general of a major state is less qualified than a multiply-bankrupted host of a cheesy reality show.

Maybe that’s just me.

 

Michael de Adder demonstrates what the White House has to offer as a counterattack: They’ll just slime her with the “nasty” label that Trump applies to women who talk back.

 

While Steve Sack suggests Dear Leader is perhaps not best situated to hurl the first stone.

 

Ann Telnaes — who cheerfully bills herself as “nasty” — offers a counterargument to Trump’s accusation that Harris had the nerve to press ol’ beer-loving Brett Kavanaugh to actually answer questions in his confirmation hearing.

I would add that, while the curly tail is the critical detail here — and don’t miss the tiny trotter protruding from his sleeve — I’m captivated by the line where his makeup leaves off.

Bolton’s book claims it takes two hours for Dear Leader to get his makeup and hair just so each day.

Boy George, at the height of his popularity, didn’t put in that kind of time on cosmetics, but then Boy George, even at the height of his popularity, still had to show up at the studio on time.

Trump reportedly wanders in and out of briefings at random, but, damn, he sure looks good doing it!

 

Trump has also announced that suburban women support him because he’s going to keep the poor folks out of their neighborhoods. Jeff Stahler isn’t buying it.

Dear Leader modified his original dog whistle, admitting that 30 percent of suburban dwellers are the sort of people he and his dad got sued for denying apartments in their buildings.

Y’know who I mean.

In case you don’t, John Eastman, who would have run against Harris for California Attorney General in 2010 if he hadn’t gotten pounded in the GOP primary, wrote an essay in Newsweek explaining that, while being born in the United States makes you a citizen, it doesn’t make you the kind of citizen who can be president.

To which the editors later attached this astonishing addendum, linked to what I think may set a new standard for pissy little crybaby self-justifying explanations of terrible decisions.

Not that I’m being judgmental, mind you.

But I’ll give Anne Morse-Hambrock the last word, because, no, you’re not required to wallow in the mud.