Newsweek Education Program has posted a “2005: The Year in Political Cartoons” teacher’s guide.
2005 arrived on the waves of a late-December tsunami in southern Asia, a catastrophic event that augured a year marked by natural disaster. A record number of hurricanes in the United States, including the devastating Katrina and Rita, was followed by a major earthquake in Pakistan. A slow response to the hurricane crisis also spelled disaster for the Bush administration, already reeling from Americans? reaction to the ongoing Iraq war, spiraling gas prices, an attempt to overhaul Social Security and political scandals within the Republican Party.
Change was also a theme of 2005. The Catholic Church laid Pope John Paul II to rest and elected a new leader, and controversy surrounded a rare double vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court. Health issues also were in the news, as citizens pondered both the government?s role in a controversial end-of-life case and the effects of a potential avian flu outbreak. Through it all, political cartoonists around the country weighed in with their opinions and made us think about our own.