By the Comics Curmudgeon
If there is one thing guaranteed to enrage America’s arbiter of good taste, it is making any kind of snide remark about Ted Kennedy when he is ill or, in the current case, dead. Naturally, this rule has been flouted relentlessly for the past two days by the crassest, most awful people in the world, which is to say political cartoonists. Who are these heartless monsters, and why do they try so very hard to ruin our national conversation about how much we love Ted Kennedy? MORE »

William F. Buckley Jr., founder of conservative ideas and delightful sailor, died earlier this week. This afternoon, the Nation posted an article challenging Buckley’s legacy. “Buckley’s so-called boldness and playfulness had an ideological flip-side,” Richard Kim writes, “cruelty, pettiness and a tendency to embrace fascistic solutions in the guise of pragmatism.” What the hell is wrong with Richard Kim? Doesn’t he know that it is, objectively, too soon to question Buckley’s ideas? If Kim expects anyone to show up at his funeral after this stunt, he’s kidding himself. MORE »

Laura Dern is playing Katherine “Kitty” Harris in HBO’s upcoming film Recount, an adaptation of a lost Care Bears book in which Al Gore doesn’t become president. And on Monday, they were filming in Tallahassee — only backwards. MORE »