Looking back at the GW Bush presidency

Posted on March 28, 2015 by - free speech, human rights, politics, womens issues

I just returned from participating on a cartoonists panel looking back at the George W Bush presidency at Hofstra University in Long Island, NY.  Our moderator was Roslyn Mazer, a great supporter of cartoonists’ free speech rights who represented the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists in an amicus brief for the famous Hustler v Falwell case  in 1987.  The other cartoonists on the panel were Mike Peters from the Dayton Daily News, Steve Breen from the San Diego Times Union-Tribune, and Mike Luckovich from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.  It’s always fun to get together with my colleagues and this particular group had me laughing most of the time.  Especially Mike Peters.  The evening before our panel Roslyn herded us to a local Italian restaurant (think The Sopranos) and watching Mike interact with our waiter was priceless.

The next day while we waited in the hospitality room before our panel I mentioned to Mike that the former NSA and CIA director Michael Hayden was sitting over at the next table. Without missing a beat Mike rushed over to his table, introduced himself, and proceeded to ask the creator of the NSA warrantless surveillance program  to “just forget” hearing that obscene phone call he had with his wife.MikePeters&HaydenSM

A sketch from another panel at the Hofstra presidential conference, “The Constitution, Executive Power and National Security Post-9/11.  If you put everything Michael Hayden said during the discussion into one sentence it would be: The Obama administration is doing the same bad stuff we did.  HaydenPanelSketch

The Charlie Hebdo massacre

Posted on January 9, 2015 by - free speech, human rights, politics

Four cartoonists Five cartoonists were among the 12 murdered at the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo on January 7th.  My colleagues have banded together and continue to offer their support in the way they know best- through cartoons.

I’ll add more links later but meanwhile here’s the cartoon I drew in support of Charlie Hebdo right after hearing the horrible news:

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My opinion piece “The killing of cartoonists” at the Washington Post

Cartoonists and Turkish President Erdogan

Posted on January 4, 2015 by - free speech, human rights, politics

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan doesn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor.  The New York Times has a story about how the Turkish president is trying to limit how he is depicted in drawings by arresting cartoonists and charging them with libel and insulting government officials (which is apparently against the law in Turkey).  The Cartoonists Rights Network International also writes about it here.

My Washington Post cartoon about President Erdogan arresting a 16-year-old because the teenager criticized him received quite a bit of traffic on twitter among Turkish readers. It also ended up on the front page of Cumhuriyet, the oldest Turkish daily newspaper.

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