CSotD: Retouching Reality

The Big Story today is that Princess Catherine, who seemed to disappear after a mysterious abdominal surgery of some sort, seemed to reappear in a photo of herself with her three children.

And then it turned out she’d Photoshopped the picture instead of leaving it up the Photoshopper Royal, as Dr. MacLeod recommends, with the result that her less-than-fabulous work was spotted, by which point the fake was withdrawn by newspapers around the world.

This is a very big story among royal groupies who keep calling her “Kate Middleton” as if she were still, well, Kate Middleton. I’m all in favor of women keeping their names after marriage but not when the main effect of the wedding was that one became royal.

Though, come to think of it, I always thought of Grace Kelly as Grace Kelly and of Hope Cooke as Hope Cooke, and I’d never even heard of Hope Cooke until she became Hope Namgyal.

Come to think of it even more, Grace Kelly became Princess Grace when I was six, so I’ll bet I didn’t know much about her then, either. But she was famous, so it was a name worth keeping.

Which she didn’t. Nor did Kate.

In any case, it’s all been big news in Britain and cartoonists like Matt Pritchett have been having fun with the concept.

It even prompted a

Juxtaposition of the Day

Ben Jennings

Guy Venables

I don’t understand royal worship, but I certainly understand wanting to get Randy Andy out of the picture, particularly since he picked up that nickname before anyone knew he was a pal of Jeffrey Epstein.

Oh well. We’ve got Kardashians, so there’s no need to be snarky about Britain and their royals. Also I just read that Julia Roberts sends out 15-year-old headshots of herself, which I guess is better than trying to use Photoshop if you’re not good at it.

Speaking of doing things you’re not particularly good at, the Katie Britt cartoons are starting to come in, and John Deering (Creators) may have the kindest commentary, dismissing her as an obnoxious cult member. I like the “T” around her neck, since she was wearing a cross to let us know she prays on street corners.

Clay Jones points out that she echoed Elise Stefanik’s question, which worked very well when it was first coined by Ronald Reagan, in part because he was Ronald Reagan and in part because he asked it in a debate with Jimmy Carter, who had presided over a particularly rough patch.

As Jones points out in his essay, the problem this time around is that we were demonstrably far worse off three years ago, and, by the way, that was largely because Donald Trump was president. The fact that we had nowhere to go but up is not a good argument for putting the previous guy back in office.

The only positive from Britt’s bizarre speech was that she inspired the SNL crew to come up with a brilliant parody, with Scarlett Johansson playing her so well that I scrolled past the video a few times on social media before realizing it wasn’t her.

But I think Jones does well to point out the sane, logical answer. Britt’s speech was purely a call-out to the cult.

Jimmy Margulies (KFS) points out that the GOP is entirely the Party of Trump, though the woman makes a reasonable point that we can’t count on him even being loyal to himself in the end.

But the basic fact is that the GOP is Trump’s, not only with his daughter-in-law elected its head and promising that the party is dedicated to the top of the ticket, but with Trump announcing that he doesn’t want Haley supporters voting for him in November.

If it’s not a cult, it sure is a loyal fan club.

But don’t expect to find Deb Milbrath as a member of that club. While other cartoonists have been having fun with Britt’s disastrous appearance, Milbrath points out that, while Britt was lying about a trafficked woman in a different country at another time, she was stirring up outrage over the sexual assault with the intention of asking people to vote for an unrepentant rapist.

Which isn’t funny, particularly since they probably will vote for him.

If they vote at all.

Juxtaposition of the Day #2

Adam Zyglis

Dave Granlund

Not to pick on Zyglis and Granlund, mind you: Their work is featured here often enough that I clearly like what they do. They’re just here representing a large number of political cartoonists who, though tending towards progressive causes, have been reminding people that the upcoming election is very boring.

I haven’t seen a cartoon specifically urging people not to vote, but I’m not sure what other message you could get. The race seems close and the stakes are high, and you’d think it would be at least portrayed as suspenseful if not exciting.

As Mark Jacob writes, this may well be the most important election of our lifetimes.

As he says, “If you’re a journalist and you find this election boring, you’re in the wrong damn business.”

For instance, JD Crowe notes the implications of the court decision declaring embryos to have the same rights as the born. The immediate effect on in-vitro fertilization caused the right-to-life crew to illogically decide that, while aborting one embryo is murder, throwing away a half dozen is not.

In league with the overturning of Roe v Wade and intentions of a federal law against abortion, you’d think this would make the upcoming election anything but boring.

Meanwhile, as Peter Schrank points out, Biden has been wrestling with a ghastly set of conflicting goals in Gaza, where our long-term alliance with Israel has cast him in the role of supplying weapons for a war his supporters can’t support, and now even his attempts to bring aid to the starving people there are being stalled and criticized.

Meanwhile, Ukraine is under attack and the House of Representatives is holding up aid, knowing that, if Trump gets back in office, whatever’s left of Kyev will become a city in Russia.

Clay Bennett (CTFP) explains the election in two words: If you think elections are boring, you risk finding out how exciting life can be.