Wonkette

Thousands of dockworkers from Seattle to San Diego didn’t show up at work today, forcing the closure of all 29 ports in the Western United States — including the busiest American ports at Los Angeles and Long Beach. What the hell? MORE »

* “Hungry” and “angry” Dems star in Steve Benen’s so far unscripted and plot-less Democratic presidential campaign. [The Carpetbagger Report]
* DarkSyde likes his Dems — and unregistered’s — even angrier. Vote for us, Joe Undecided, because Karl Rove hates you. Um, plot development? [DailyKos]
* Tony Blankley drank his latte, watched an MLK Jr. clip, tore Tuesday off his Norman Vincent Peale calendar, and smugly blogged for despondent congressmen types. [Real Clear Politics]
* Port controversy, violent hurricane, bloody civil war with no foreseeable end: we got that goin’ for us, which is nice. [The Jawa Report]
* If you’re not angry enough to vote, maybe it’s because April 15th isn’t here yet. John Irons’ take on tax reform (alternatively: “tax reform”) — unlike the empty promises of rap mogul PSA’s — will actually make you die. [Think Progress]

The issues facing the country and the body politic are, these days, distressingly non-visual. Which presents some challenges to our nation’s caroonists. How to depict the prospect of a showdown with Iran? The lobbying scandals? The political fallout of the ports deal?

As our resident cartoon expert the Comics Curmudgeon learned this week, you do it with jokes about Dick Cheney shooting a guy in the face! And references to the difficulties faced by pimps out here!

Our weekly roundup of the general suckiness of Today’s Cartoons, after the jump.

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Pierce Bush! He’s the super-cool laid-back son of Neil (the black sheep Bush brother), just chillin’, brah, down in Austin, checkin’ out the scene, scorin’ wit’ bitches, knahahmsayin’? MORE »

This week’s Sunday shows were best viewed with 20/20 hindsight.

Top topics: Dubai ports deal (dead) and the Southern Republican Leadership Conference straw poll (meaningless). This was leavened with some talk of Iraq and a single, lonely reference to Saturday’s Gridiron show.

Quotes to live by:
• Chris Wallaces curses us out: “Do the Democrats have — pardon the expression — a Newt Gingrich?”
• Bill Kristol also has the first Arctic Monkeys seven-inch: “I liked McCain before it was cool for conservatives to like McCain.”
• Everyone (except surprise mystery guest Joe Biden) avoids saying they’re running for President, though Huckabee does announce for 2016.
• Hospice-bound Art Buchwald stays wry: “I believe in God, but I’m not too certain that the people who are telling me that ‘it’s God’s will’ are the people I want to be listening to.”

Full rundown after the jump.

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* Oh, the fun we have! Chris Matthews’ friends laughed at Kim Eisler, then Wonkette’s friends laughed at Chris Matthews’ stationery.
* But no one laughed at Jack Kingston’s attempt to cop some street cred.
* Ports, Ports, Ports.
* Having saved David Gregory’s job, we are expecting to be the next recipient of one of his giggly drunk international calls. It’s only fair, Dave.
* We witnessed the all-too-soon end of Take Your Legislator To Lunch day. To everyone’s disappointment.
* Wolf met Jack, and it looks like we made it through the post without a Brokeback Mountain joke! Good work all, drinks all around.
* We called Pat Roberts, and he didn’t seem particularly happy to hear from us. Sometimes we just think funny things…
* They may not be able to convince the International Community that they’re a responsible governing body, but Hamas has convinced 10-year-old girls across the world that martyrs are totally cute.
* Ex-prostitute Tom Malin is not an ex-gay ex-prostitute. He is also, unfortunately, not a Texas State Representative.
* We got drunk at the Press Club! With bloggers! Which son do you think Mrs. Reed is prouder of: Lou, or the one who edits that libertarian magazine?
* Is the military censoring Wonkette? Not exactly, unless you have a pretty liberal definition of “censoring.” But someone doesn’t like us, that’s for sure.
* The State Department is, apparently, a hotbed of bitchy gossip and infighting. Obviously, we’ll be much more interested in it from here on out. U.S. Ambassador to Sudan: “Where’s your prophet now?”
* Is it just us, or were there like fifty identical poll results released this week that were all treated as breaking news? Anyway, we just liked the ones that came with graphics.

OMG! OMG! Lou Dobbs is on TV right now, talking about how the Congress shut down the ports deal and he’s so totally cute that I just want to put him in my pocket! His idealism is all alit and he’s pumping his fists and he’s trying to get Kyra Phillips to hop on the new day in America train with him. MORE »

John Warner, on the Senate floor a little while ago: MORE »

* House Appropriations Committee votes overwhelmingly to block Dubai ports deal; measure was attached to war spending bill. [WP]
* For Republican lawmakers, “political considerations” trump loyalty to Bush over port deal and, to a lesser extent, eavesdropping. Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO): “If there was ever a good time for Congress to figure out oversight, it would be in the sixth year of a presidency.” [NYT]
* Senate compromise would permit eavesdropping on Americans without court warrant; administration would have 45 days to prove individual cases. [NYT]
* Bush accuses Congress of underfunding Gulf Coast reconstruction: “Congress heard our message about improving the levees, but they shortchanged the process by about $1.5 billion.” [WP, NYT]
* Senators agree to reject meals and gifts from lobbyists. [WP, NYT]
* Jack Abramoff to Vanity Fair: “Any important Republican who comes out and says they didn’t know me is almost certainly lying.” [NYT]
* Senate Republicans try to trim Bush’s spending requests for defense and foreign aid. [W$J]
* South Dakota expected to start trend of states rethinking abortion rights; nine others are moving to limit the procedure. [W$J]
* Michael Chertoff looks for the high road as others point fingers of blame — and some directly at him. [NYT]

Is the cartoon riot thing over yet? We don’t remember hearing about it this week at all. That’s always a good sign, right? Good work Hitch and Sully!

We do hope that episode ended, or fizzled out, or whatever. ‘Cause we don’t think people should be blowing up Danes, sure, but also because we want to go back to the world where no one gave a shit about cartoons. The world of, like two months ago. When editorial cartoonists, secure in their obscurity, could repeat the jokes they stole from 1950’s Herblock cartoons with crosshatching and textual labeling of strained metaphors straight outta vintage Thomas Nast.

We miss that innocent time. And so does our buddy the Comics Curmudgeon. CC’s been blogging about daily, non-political comics for a while now, so we asked him to take the impressive skills he’s developed as America’s Premier Comic Strip Mocker and train them on the political cartoonists of our nation’s newspapers. His analysis is after the jump.

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