This cartoon is mostly an exercise in caricature. And it might contain the highest number of caricatures I have ever put in one cartoon.
Most of these renderings are successful, IMHO, but if I hadn’t labeled these characters, I don’t think I would have recognized most of them. Especially Joe Biden. I got the squint, but everything else is all wrong. The Bush and Cheney are the most successful, and I would get a lot of practice drawing them over the years. I should note that the Cheney caricature evolves into something much less consigliere and much more malevolent court advisor.
The Arlen Specter rendering reads well to me, too. He was Pennsylvania’s longest serving Senator when he died of cancer in 2012. At the time of this cartoon he was a Republican, and he had been active in going after Clinton during the Lewinsky years. As head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, he publicly supported the idea of impeaching Clinton (again) for pardoning Marc Rich. He died a Democrat, however, because he had become too independent for the GOP to tolerate.
Dan Burton, a representative from Indiana, was especially delighted to go after Clinton. As Slate notes in a column posted at the time, he did not see a Clinton-related activity he would not investigate. He eventually joined the Tea Party caucus in 2009 and retired in 2012. I don’t think my drawing of him succeeds as a likeness, but it’s at least kinda funny.
The Don Nickles caricature amuses me. At the time the senator from Oklahoma seemed boyish to me, even like an elf. Nowadays he looks more like Robocop era Ronny Cox. He didn’t support impeaching over the Marc Rich affair, but he proposed reducing Clinton’s pension and other benefits. They were a spiteful bunch then as they are now.
Older folks and followers of Minnesota politics will know who Paul Wellstone was. He was the only senator to vote against the PATRIOT Act and he was a reliable voice for progressive causes in Washington. He died too soon in a plane crash in 2002. Al Franken, a close friend of Wellstone, was incensed that conservative opportunist Ron Coleman had taken over Wellstone’s Senate seat. A few years later Franken beat Coleman by a narrow margin years later.
I’ll have more to say about the Marc Rich pardon when I post the cartoon about Leonard Peltier, who is still sitting in prison, fighting Covid-19 now.
