Existing comment:
The Reverend Ron's Jonestown Economics
1982
Pen and ink
Sui generis, in Latin, means unique. Political cartoonist Patrick Oliphant is exactly that.
In Washington, Oliphant made the mighty squirm as he joyfully skewered them. No ideological bias was ever detected as he ran roughshod over all, invoking gales of laughter for some while others assumed the fetal position.
The Reagan years were no different. He portrayed Soviets as oafish -- but so too the American labor movement. Uncle Sam was depicted as a boozy, overweight W. C. Fields in striped pants. Feminists were drawn as the Nordic Brunhilda, complete with lance, horned helmet, and shield. George H. W. Bush always had a purse on his arm, driving the Republican leader around the bend. Reagan was lampooned -- though sometimes gently -- drawn as a handsome if older man.
His sharpest barbs were often saved for the U.S. Post Office, NASA, Ferdinand Marcos, the IRA, and Reagan aides Ed Meese, Al Haig, Don Regan, and Ann Burford (head of the EPA) but also Democrats such as Gary Hart and Michael Dukakis. Ollie North (who caused a huge scandal in Reagan's second term) was among them.
Throughout the 1980s, Oliphant did not shy away from social commentary and took on Affirmative Action, corporate corruption, and the nuclear freeze movement. One cartoon skewered "Hands Across America," a public relations stunt supposedly supporting AIDS victims.
Oliphant, with his stiletto for a pen and his rapier-like wit, was always on point, his illustrations the subject of Georgetown cocktail chatter, and he always challenged the powerful of Washington. |