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Home > Opinion > Mike Luckovich > Archives > 2006 > February
February 2006
Strong supporter
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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my apologies
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
By Pinko Liberal February 28, 2006 04:04 AM | Link to this I’ve always liked ML but this time he’s gone too far. How dare he sully the name of Don Knotts by having that idiot portray him in a cartoon.
so true
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Peter Galbraith: “In his State of the Union address, President Bush told his Iraq critics, ‘Hindsight is not wisdom and second-guessing is not a strategy.’ His comments are understandable. Much of the Iraq fiasco can be directly attributed to Bush’s shortcomings as a leader. Having decided to invade Iraq, he failed to make sure there was adequate planning for the postwar period. He never settled bitter policy disputes among his principal aides over how postwar Iraq would be governed; and he allowed competing elements of his administration to pursue diametrically opposed policies at nearly the same time. He used jobs in the Coalition Provisional Authority to reward political loyalists who lacked professional competence, regional expertise, language skills, and, in some cases, common sense. Most serious of all, he conducted his Iraq policy with an arrogance not matched by political will or military power.”
HOW CAN ANY INTELLIGENT PERSON STILL SUPPORT THIS DOOFUS?
Barney Fife lives
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Bush’s ship comes in
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Visions of bin Laden
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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One of the perks?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Right man for the job?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Port security
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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High-flying ski jumper
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Olympic icemelt
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Take me to my leader
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Having to say you’re sorry
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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an interview
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
JON FRIEDMAN’S MEDIA WEB Luckovich blasts Danish cartoons Commentary: Plus, Pulitzer winner ponders Cheney
E-mail | Print | | Disable live quotes By Jon Friedman, MarketWatch Last Update: 12:01 AM ET Feb 15, 2006
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Mike Luckovich, the Pulitzer-winning cartoonist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, sounded a little sheepish when he talked about the Danish cartoon furor. Luckovich, 46, criticized his brethren for using poor judgment in depicting the Prophet Muhammad. “You have to be responsible,” he noted disapprovingly — “and that’s an odd thing for a cartoonist to be saying. We’re always looking to get under people’s skin.”
The controversy, which sparked deadly rioting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has thrown a light on political cartoons and whether cartoonists occasionally go too far in their attempts to mock public figures. “Sometimes what I say is going to offend people, but I have to be true to myself,” he said. “I consider myself a columnist who uses a humor to make my point.”
Luckovich maintains that the Danish cartoons crossed a line of decency and professionalism. “Their mission was just to tick people off,” he said. “That’s what the editor wanted. I don’t think there was any greater message. You don’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater, just to yell ‘fire.’”
Make no mistake, Luckovich is hardly a prude in his approach to satire. He (and such cohorts as the Washington Post’s Tom Toles) continue in the tradition of Herbert Block (“Herblock”), Bill Mauldin, Paul Conrad and Pat Oliphant, to name four iconic provocateurs in the history of newspaper cartoons.
“I’m Catholic, and my kids attend Catholic school,” Luckovich said Sunday on CNN’s excellent “Reliable Sources” program. “I have done numerous cartoons on Catholic scandals, like the pedophilia scandal. But I have never used Jesus Christ to make my point. I feel like there is a line there.” When a cartoon is too pointed, it loses its humorous edge and its effectiveness, Luckovich told me. “You use symbolism and imagery to make a larger point,” he said. “A cartoon has to be hard-hitting to be effective. But sometimes, your imagery can overwhelm the cartoon, if it’s not calibrated correctly.”
Luckovich reserved his sharpest criticism for the Danish editor. “An editor makes the decision on what goes into the paper,” he said. “I don’t hold the cartoonists as responsible as the editor.”
When I asked him Monday to talk about his journalistic philosophy, Luckovich said he relies on a combination of common sense and good taste in recognizing where to draw the line. For instance, Luckovich is no fan of the Bush administration’s policies but he wouldn’t try to embarrass anyone merely to get a cheap laugh.
“I wouldn’t put Bush or Cheney in a sexual position,” he said. “That would be an example of a cartoon with offensive imagery. I would draw (Bill) Clinton with his pants down with heart-shaped underwear. He widened the parameters for cartoonists. But I would never show him in a sexual position. In our culture, we are very — what’s the word…” “Puritanical?” I suggested. “Yes, puritanical,” Luckovich answered.
Luckovich’s luck
It’s 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 13. As usual, Luckovich is happily freaking out. One hour before his deadline arrives, Luckovich is still groping for inspiration. Oh, he knows he’ll be lampooning the surreal case of Vice President Dick Cheney, who accidentally shot a 78-year-old companion on a hunting trip over the weekend, in the next day’s editions. But Luckovich is still fiddling with ideas.
Just as death and taxes are inevitable, it’s close to a sure thing that Luckovich will come up with something topical, tasteful and, most of all, very funny. The Cheney fiasco inspired him, to say the least. “After I heard that Cheney’s friend wasn’t killed, I began jumping up and down,” Luckovich laughed. “For cartoonists, our week is made!”
But it’s not enough for Luckovich to state the obvious. He aims to highlight the inherent irony in a situation and zing someone who acts pompous or self-serious.
“This administration takes itself way too seriously,” Luckovich said. “They can never admit that they made a mistake. There is something very funny about this — especially because Cheney doesn’t have much of a sense of humor. He’s always so grim, so authoritarian. This is a time when you see he is human and, as he would say, he screwed up big-time.”
Luckovich drew an image of the Vice President sitting by Harry Whittington’s bed and looking down at his friend. “An apology is in order,” Cheney is saying to the hospitalized man, adding impatiently, “I’M WAITING.”
Giddy
Luckovich has a typical work day, which he doesn’t recommend to a faint-of-heart journalist. “What I’ll try to do is work right up to my 5:30 deadline,” he said. “Then I knock it out as quickly as I can. Out of a panic, I’ll concentrate and come up with something. When I do, I’m almost giddy.”
Like a songwriter who has to invent a coherent set of music and lyrics, Luckovich has a dual challenge of his own. He must create just the right image and caption. “The drawing probably comes first,” he observed. “First, I’ll have an image, then I’ll work on the language.”
Luckovich looks for inspiration from current events and tries to remain topical but not heavy-handed. In one instance, after reading that Clinton and the first president Bush were genuinely good friends, Luckovich drew a cartoon showing the two sitting side by side in a movie theater. Seated a row behind them, one secret service agent mutters to his partner, “I’m beginning to think this friendship’s real,” as the screen points out that the chums are watching “Brokeback Mountain.”
Luckovich doesn’t always have to be humorous to make a large point. “In 2005, my favorite cartoon was when the 2,000th soldier had been killed in Iraq,” he said. “I wrote ‘WHY?’ using the soldiers’ names. When it ran, there was an immense outpouring, both pro and con. That’s what makes America great.”
I asked him to name his favorite cartoon of all time. I could have guessed his response. He shot back: “Today’s cartoon will be my favorite — until tomorrow.”
Victimology
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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You made me miss
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Anyone listening?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Buddies forever
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Meet your new editor
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Pen vs. sword
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Reed and the GOP
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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W’s shadow
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Purple heartthrobs?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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Slippery speech
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
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