Advertisement

A cartoon history of the Obama/tea party years

Share

Barack Obama was first sworn into office on Jan. 20, 2009, and, from that day to this, a battle for the soul of America has been waged. The half-decade since has been one of the most politically polarized periods in U.S. history as conservative talk radio hosts, Fox News commentators, secretive billionaire campaign financiers, the NRA, the tea party movement and right wing celebrities such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck have all tried to delegitimize the first non-white president of the United States.

It has been a strange era in which facts count far less than passionately expressed delusions. Amid all this dispiriting mendacity and hyperpartisanship, I have had the privilege of commenting about our curious times through my cartoons and columns. Not only has this allowed me to stay sane (though some of my more antagonistic readers would sharply disagree with that assessment), it has given me the chance to build a body of work that chronicles all the foolishness.

With all those cartoons lying around, I decided it was time to put together a brand new book. The result is “Refuge of Scoundrels,” a collection of my best cartoons from the last five years. If you agree this has been a weird passage in our political journey, you will probably enjoy the book. It is offered in a full color version or in a black and white version that has 26 extra cartoons.

Advertisement

To check out “Refuge of Scoundrels,” go here.

For the next few days, I’ll be busy working on a project that will appear in the L.A. Times’ special Academy Awards section in the Sunday newspaper on March 2 and as a gallery in the Company Town blog. I’ll be back later next week with new cartoons that just might show up in another book five years from now.

Advertisement