The Old Boy’s Revenge Comes Straight From the Heart

President Reagan, probably the most frequent target of the nation’s editorial cartoonists, got some comic relief in a Rose Garden speech to members of the American Assn. of Editorial Cartoonists in which he implored them to “take it easy on the old boy.” Reagan pointed to blowups of caricatures of himself and offered a tongue-in-cheek critique, particularly a panel showing him as “the Great Communicator” beneath an empty word “balloon.” Picking up a marking pen, he began to fill in the balloon, writing the word “the.” Then he stopped, turned and paused with perfect timing to shrug: “I forgot what I was going to say.” He mentioned one of his most famous tormentors, Garry Trudeau, creator of the comic strip “Doonesbury,” who since 1981 has been taking readers on periodic tours of Reagan’s brain. “Cartoonists occupy a special place in my heart,” the President said. “I hope Garry Trudeau will remember that--it’s heart. Not brain, heart.”

--The White House had a rare opportunity to turn the tables on Trudeau, who has been depicting Reagan as “Ron Headrest,” a spoof on television’s computer-generated “Max Headroom.” In Thursday’s strip, Headrest is shown saying: “That re-reminds me! Kids! Need rock-solid information on safe sex? Call this number on your screen!” And they did. The number is the general number of the White House. Presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater told reporters that the White House switchboard was referring callers to the New York office of Universal Press Syndicate, which distributes “Doonesbury.” Jake Morrissey, a Universal associate editor, said a handful of editors were fielding the calls, with some of the callers apparently wanting real information about “safe sex” and others just playing along with the joke. “The ones who ask for information we are referring to their local health agency,” he said.

--Even President Reagan isn’t exempt from the vagaries of the federal bureaucracy. The Internal Revenue Service center in Fresno misplaced the Reagans’ 1986 tax return several weeks ago and spent several days looking for it before discovering that it simply had been routed to the wrong department. IRS officials refused to comment on the incident, but an IRS employee said security agents scoured the building looking for the 14-page return and that it took several days to find it. The return has since been processed, and the Reagans have been sent a refund check of $16,057.