Oliphant's Veeps

"Promises, Promises" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, April 1968

How many vice presidents do you count in the above cartoon?

I recently mused that since "Oliphant's Presidents" has already been done (you can buy the book at amazon), I could have commemorated Pat Oliphant's passing by collecting his Vice Presidents. Well, his career spanned several of them, so here they are.

"Click" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, October, 1968

Lyndon Johnson picked Hubert Humphrey as his running mate in 1964 to shore up his support with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. To Baby Boomers too young to remember the Minnesotan speaking out on behalf of Black Americans' civil rights in 1948, however, Humphrey came to be seen as errand boy for the man sending that generation to fight and die in a far away forever war in southeast Asia.

Running for president in LBJ's place after Johnson withdrew from the race, Humphrey found it difficult to distance himself from the administration's unpopular war while promising to continue advancing its Great Society ideals.

Of course, Johnson qualifies as a former Vice President in this cartoon, too. I suppose it is possible that Aussie Oliphant penned a cartoon of LBJ sometime before November of 1963; John Kennedy's Vice President could well have said or done something to catch the attention of the Adelaide editorial pages.

"Our Earth Contact, Spiro, Is Pushing for a Landing Here by 1986" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, September 1969

Humphrey lost the 1968 election to Richard Nixon, whose first Vice President, Spiro Agnew, served as the new administration's attack dog, speaking out against the media, liberals, antiwar activists, and the nattering nabobs of negativism.

Oliphant has some fun with one of Agnew's less controversial pronouncements in this cartoon, just two months after the first manned landing on the moon.

There has not, in case anybody is wondering, been a manned mission to Mars as of this writing; but NASA landed a craft on the Red Planet ten years before Mr. Agnew predicted.

Agnew was easily the most caricaturable of the Veeps we're looking at today — at least of the ones who never got promoted to the top job — so five versions of him show up in Oliphant's single-panel cartoon.

Did you remember to count Nixon as a former Veep at the top of this post?

"The Lone Ranger" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, May 1974

Of course you did.

Less than nine months into Richard Nixon's second term, Agnew pled no contest to charges of bribery  and resigned the Vice Presidency, bringing about the first exercise of the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Passed and ratified after JFK's assassination, it provided a mechanism to fill a vice presidential vacancy.

Gerald Ford was quickly named and confirmed as Agnew's replacement at a time when the President had some legal problems of his own. Yet, while Agnew cartoons were instantly recognizable, six months into Ford's vice presidency Oliphant still found it necessary to write Ford's name on his chest.

"I'd Like You to Meet Our New Vice-President" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, December 1974

No such problem with Nelson Rockefeller, the former Governor of New York who had run for the presidency in 1960, 1964, and 1968.

He did not make a lasting impression as Ford's second in command, however. Not long ago, contestants on Jeopardy! needed to come up with the name of the vice president who followed Gerald Ford, and none of the three knew who it was.

I'm sure my very intelligent readership had no problem spotting him in the cartoon at the top of today's post.

"Ah Plan a Highly Important Staff Role" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, January 1977

The vice presidency is notoriously a thankless make-work job. John Nance Garner likened it to a bucket of warm spit, or something that rhymed with it. Thomas Marshall joked about two brothers, one of whom went to sea while the other was elected Vice President, and neither was heard from again. Julia Louis-Dreyfus's Selina Meyers in Veep was a character study in constant frustration and humiliation.

Jimmy Carter actually followed through with his promise to give Walter Mondale a substantial policy role in his administration. Mondale, the first vice president to have an office inside the White House, was Carter's adviser and trouble-shooter, the Georgian's conduit to Capitol Hill Democrats.

"There Is No Truth Whatever in the Rumor" by Pat Oliphant, October 10, 1988

There was nothing fair about that purse Oliphant always drew with Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush — Oliphant went further than almost any other mainstream editorial cartoonist in exploiting Bush's so-called Wimp Factor.

Having criticized Ronald Reagan's "voodoo economics" when Bush was a rival for the Republican presidential nomination in 1980, Bush served as a major cheerleader for Reaganomics and the rest of that administration's policies. Behind the scenes, Bush continued the Mondale model of the vice presidency: an experienced advisor who didn't seek credit for administration successes. By the same token, he also avoided the limelight during the Iran-Contra scandal.

The purse, and the Wimp Factor, disappeared once Bush as President dispatched troops to overthrow the government of Panama.

"How Come Is It" by Pat Oliphant, January 9, 1992

Young and handsome J. Danforth Quayle presented cartoonists with a real caricaturing challenge, which Oliphant answered by drawing him as a child. The vice presidency didn't lend Quayle much opportunity to dispel the cartoonists' depiction of him as a callow, inexperienced goofball; attempting to correct a schoolboy's flawless spelling of "potato" didn't help him.

It was a case of peaking too soon; he might have been taken more seriously after a few more years gave him a face fit for presidential central casting. I wouldn't have recognized him in the second pew at Dick Cheney's funeral over three decades later if he hadn't been sitting next to his wife.

"Where Do We Put Mr. Gore" by Pat Oliphant, November 8, 1993

Oliphant leaned into Al Gore's wooden reputation here, a product of the Vice President's extremely careful, measured, parsed, and deliberate speaking style. If Dan Quayle came off as a not-too-bright schoolboy skating by on his looks, Al Gore could have been the guidance counselor patiently explaining the importance of responsible life choices to a school assembly full of Quayles.

"The Energy Show" by Pat Oliphant, May 1, 2001

Dick Cheney was a completely different animal than any previous Vice President. Oliphant consistently portrayed him as the real power behind a frat boy President who got the job on the strength of having been a legacy student who made it to graduation because Dad's name was on a wing of the administration building.

Chief of Staff for President Ford, Congressman from Wyoming, and Defense Secretary under Bush the Elder, Cheney was more recently Chair of the Halliburton Corporation, a multinational oil service conglomerate. Tapped to find Bush the Younger a running mate in 2000, he found one in the mirror.

"I'm Smilin' Joe Biden and I'm Running for President" by Pat Oliphant, January 23, 2013

A commenter at Daily Cartoonist regretted that Pat Oliphant had never drawn Joe Biden. True, Oliphant's eyesight had failed him by the time Biden won the presidency; but he had drawn Biden as Vice President (and as Senator).

Which is where this Graphical History Tour must wrap things up. I know of no Oliphant cartoons of Mike Pence or Kamala Harris, and it's highly unlikely that he ever drew J.D. Vance.

On the other hand, I could have included cartoons he drew of former Vice Presidents Thomas Jefferson and Harry Truman, and there is probably one of Teddy Roosevelt somewhere along the line. But this post is already long enough.

And I could never be certain that I hadn't missed a cartoon featuring William Rufus Devane King or Charles Curtis.

What's the News Across the Nation?

The spineless cancelation of Jimmy Kimmel by ABC has gotten a lot of attention this week. Almost lost in the hubbub has been this dark warning from Premier Donald Berzelius Trump on Air Force One on Wednesday:

"They give me only bad publicity, press. I mean, they’re getting a license. I would think maybe their license should be taken away, ... That’s all they do. If you go back, I guess they haven’t had a conservative on in years or something, somebody said. But when you go back, take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They're giving me all this bad press, and they're getting a license. When you have a network and they have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that's all they do — that license, they're not allowed to do that!"

"We Hear That You Have the Ridiculous Idea That Freedom of the Press Includes the Right to Criticize Our Administration" by Bill Sanders in Milwaukee Journal, Nov. 18, 1969

This week's Graphical History Tour makes an emergency landing at a presidency not so long ago to some of us.

President Richard M. Nixon had a notoriously testy relationship with news media, dating back to his running for Vice President with Dwight Eisenhower. Upon losing the race for Governor of California in 1962, he blamed the press, growling "You won't have Dick Nixon to kick around any more!"

"You Have Just Heard a Speech by the President of the United States" by Herbert Block in Washington Post, Nov. 16, 1969

But of course, he was elected President in 1968, and very quickly determined to bringing news media to heel. 

In November of 1969, Nixon gave a televised speech about the Vietnam War. His Chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Dean Burch demanded transcripts from the three television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) of all their commentaries on the address. Days later, Vice President Spiro Agnew set out on a speaking tour to criticize the media.

"Anybody Else, Boss?" by Frank Miller in Des Moines Register, Nov. 18, 1969

"One Federal Communications Commissioner considers the power of the networks to equal that of local, state and federal governments combined. Certainly, it represents a concentration of power over American public opinion unknown in history. 

"What do Americans know of the men who wield this power? Of the men who produce and direct the network news, the nation knows practically nothing. Of the commentators, most Americans know little, other than that they reflect an urbane and assured presence, seemingly well-informed on every important matter. 

"Well, We Don't Have Nixon to Kick Around Any More" by Don Wright in Miami News, Nov. 21, 1969

 "We do know that, to a man, these commentators and producers live and work in the geographical and intellectual confines of Washington, D.C., or New York City."

"We Feel the Public Is Getting All the Views It Needs" by Herbert Block in Washington Post, Sept. 25, 1970

Agnew protested that "I am not calling for government censorship," but his speeches raised the prospect of denying broadcasting licenses to broadcast outlets that leaned left, or were, in the words written for him by Patrick Buchanan, "the nattering nabobs of negativism."

"It's Nothing Important" by Bill Sanders in Milwaukee Journal, Dec. 20, 1972

White House Director of Communications Herbert Klein was explicit: “You in TV should examine yourself or the government will come in.”

Lest you think, however, that President Nixon was just like Dear Leader For Life Trump, please note that there were important differences between then and now.

Uncaptioned by Bill Mauldin in Chicago Sun Times, 1972

We have not gotten to the point where journalists are getting thrown in jail for not revealing their sources. Largely because newspapers and TV are pulling their punches when it comes to investigative journalism.

"Ask Me Anything" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, December 15, 1973

And asking embarrassing questions doesn't get you put on the president's Enemies List. Instead, you show up at the press room to find that your seat has been taken by the dude from the White Guys Grievance Podcast Dot Com.

"We're Considering Him for a High Position" by Herbert Block in Washington Post, Nov. 12, 1971

Herblock made a clever little play on words here, but when it comes to high positions nowadays, being a right-wing spokesflack on Fox Noise is plenty qualification enough to head a cabinet department in the line of succession to the presidency itself.

Try to Get Over the Toons of October

"And Now for the Latest Stunning Development" by Tom Darcy in Newsday, Long Island NY, October 1973

I've been seeing a lot of cartoons this week echoing the sentiment of this one by Tom Darcy half a century ago.

October of 1973 was a momentous month, and not in a particularly good way. Last Saturday's deadly surprise attack by Hamas targeting Israeli civilians as they celebrated Sukkot called to mind the Yom Kippur War almost exactly 50 years ago, when the Israeli military was caught similarly unprepared.

"Hello? Mr. Nixon? Mr. Brezhnev?" by Pat Oliphant in Denver News, October, 1973

After the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel had pre-emptively anticipated attacks from its neighbors on all sides and ended up seizing the Golan Heights from Syria, the Western Bank from Jordan, and the entire Sinai peninsula from Egypt, the Israeli military was seemingly invincible. But the Yom Kippur War would be, in the words of a Newsweek headline, "a war that broke the myths."

The UAR in Pat Oliphant's cartoon refers to the United Arab Republic, at the time a proposed union of Syria and Egypt that never actually came about. The two nations attacked Israel simultaneously, taking many Israeli soldiers captive. Egypt recaptured much of the Sinai; Syria, despite backing from Iraq, was soon driven back out of the Golan.

"An Eye for an Eye" by Corky Trinidad in Honolulu Star-Bulletin, October (?) 1973

There was an Arab-language cartoon at the time that mocked Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, who had lost an eye during World War II, wondering whether the outlook for Israel would be worse with two eyes, but I've been unable to find what book or scrapbook I have it in. Suffice it to say that Corky Trinidad's cartoon here riffs on an oft-cited biblical saying in discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by referencing both Dayan's eyepatch and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat's signature sunglasses.

Trinidad's cartoon expresses a view that both sides in the conflict are to blame for the cycle of violence that seems as never-ending now as it did half a century ago.

"You Guys Are Breaking My Back" by Ralph Yoes in San Diego Tribune, Oct. 1973

Ralph Yoes was not alone in suggesting, however, that there was plenty of blame to go around beyond the immediate belligerents. The United States was selling weapons and fighter planes to Israel, and the Soviet Union was arming the Arabs.

"Latter-Day Israelites Wandering 40 Years in the Wilderness" by Paul Conrad in Los Angeles Times, Oct. 21, 1973

Wherever one has chosen to allot the blame, there has been one party who has consistently been, and remains, the victim. For way, way over that 40 years now. 

"Hell No, I Won't Go" by Wayne Stayskal in Chicago Today, October, 1973

Meanwhile, a U.S. District Attorney's investigation of corruption of Baltimore, Maryland officials discovered evidence linking Vice President Spiro Agnew to kickbacks from state contractors while he had been governor, and continuing after he was elected Richard Nixon's Vice President. Citing as precedent an 1826 House of Representatives investigation of Andrew Jackson's Vice President John C. Calhoun, Agnew argued that a vice president was immune from indictment by the criminal court system.

Deferring to the charges filed by the D.A., Speaker of the House Carl Albert (D-OK and third in line for the presidency) declined to open congressional investigation of the charges. As you may already know, both the House Judiciary Committee and the Nixon administration were quite occupied with other important matters in October of 1973.

"Yes, Thank You for Your Support, Mr. President" by Hugh Haynie in Louisville Courier-Journal, October, 1973

Agnew pleaded no contest to felony charges of tax evasion and resigned on October 10. Mike Peters's cartoon the next morning referenced a novelty watch and Agnew's dashed presidential hopes.

No caption, by Mike Peters in Dayton Daily News, Oct. 11, 1973

The 25th Amendment to the Constitution, passed after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, authorized the president to nominate a new Vice President, in this case Congressman Gerald R. Ford, subject to confirmation by the Senate.

"I Hate to Criticize the Framers of the Constitution" by Phil Interlandi in Los Angeles Times, Oct. 23, 1973

Thus the nation turned its eyes back to Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal, and just in time for the "Saturday Night Massacre."

"Sure I Did It" by Bill Sanders in Milwaukee Journal, October 22, 1973

Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox, working for the Department of Justice, convinced Federal Judge John Sirica to subpoena nine White House tape recordings, the existence of which had been made public in Senate testimony that summer. In a bold attempt to quash Cox's investigation, Nixon demanded that Attorney General Elliot Richardson fire him.

Instead, Richardson resigned, followed by his Deputy, William Ruckelshaus. The next in line, Solicitor General Robert Bork did Nixon's bidding.

"Simple" by Tom Darcy in Newsday, Long Island NY, October, 1973

Blowback was swift. Time magazine and newspapers across the country called for Nixon to resign. At last, Nixon relented, promising to allow Judge Sirica to listen to the tapes...

"Well, First Let Me Emphasize My Complete Faith in Judge Sirica" by Pat Oliphant in Denver Post, Oct., 1973

... then announced that two of the subpoenaed tapes were missing. And it only got worse from there.

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I had originally intended to post today a report of last week's joint convention of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and our Canadian counterpart, but others have said just about anything I had in mind, and said it better than I would have.

I will say that it was a pleasure to meet with others in my beleaguered profession. That includes some, such as Al Goodwyn, whom I met for the first time at this convention. I know his work mainly because GoComics places him alphabetically first on its page (until Aaron Abelard comes along), and his views there are invariably opposed to mine. 

The AAEC had seen an exodus of conservative editorial cartoonists in recent years — perhaps because liberals like me keep getting elected to the governing board. But the purpose of the AAEC is not now, nor has it ever been, to push an ideological agenda. It exists first and foremost to promote editorial cartooning — right, center, or left — and to stand for professionalism and honest debate.

Nowadays, vulture capitalists are bleeding newspapers dry, reducing them to withered husks of what they used to be. The bean-counters at McClatchy summarily dismissed three Pulitzer-prize-winning editorial cartoonists in the months leading up to our convention; another was fired from a prominent position less than a week before our gathering. 

So discussion always turns to: if not newspapers, what? Patreon? Books? Television? Movies? Bar coasters? (Seriously. Bar coasters.)

In our element at the Cartoon Art Museum

One final note: I was excited to find a book of Vaughn Shoemaker's editorial cartoons in this room of the Cartoon Art Museum during our opening reception. I hoped that it would include the cartoon featuring my father when he was 5 years old. Unfortunately, the cartoons in the book dated from the 1950's, two decades too late. Aw, shucks.