Graphic Grandeur (Give Me Your Poor, Your Tired, Your Huddled Satirists Edition)

 

Editorial cartoonist Pat Oliphant was born on this day in Australia in 1935. He started out making fun of politics and politicians Down Under, and then in 1964 moved to the United States, just in time for the ascension of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Counterculture, and the Space Race, topics that all found their way onto his drawing board, and, through syndication, in newspapers across the land. Oliphant had been in the US just three years when he won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning. His career was hardly confined to the 1960s. Oliphant drew right through the Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations, retiring in 2015. None of this means Oliphant's unknown or forgotten in the country in which he grew up. In fact, the following clip appeared on Australian television just two years ago. Watch:

 Despite the presence of the late (he died just this past February) conservative political humorist P.J. O'Rourke in the above clip, Oliphant has described himself as a "liberal most of the time", and I think this half-century of cartoons mostly bears that out, but keep in mind that an editorial cartoonist takes shots at whoever's in power, no matter where they may be on the political spectrum:

 

LBJ (the president, not the basketball player) recovers from gallbladder surgery. 

A war in Southeast Asia and rioting in the streets of America. Which needed troops more?

Meanwhile, this candidate had a secret plan to win the war.

The Ho Chi Mihn trail ran a lot more smoothly than the nation's highways.

Back when the South voted Democratic.

I don't think the Israelis and the Arabs disagreed for this president's benefit, but it did provide a distraction just when he needed one.

"There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe and there never will be under a Ford Administration."

--1976 Presidential debate.

And he did.

Just as in Aesop's fable, a virtuous ant (Jimmy Carter) triumphed over a debauched grasshopper (Teddy Kennedy)...

...not that it mattered during the general election.

Strangely enough, I couldn't find an Oliphant Iran-Contra cartoons on the web--and, trust me, folks, he did many of them--but here's at least one half of the equation.

Promises, promises.

Bill Clinton's compartmentalized view of women.

And you thought there was a lot of begetting in the Bible.

Guantanamo Bay wear.

History repeats itself...

...sort of.

The mission wasn't accomplished in New Orleans either.

From 2011. If anything, that fourth branch of government has gotten bigger in the years since.

Before the election...

...and after.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

This is from 2013. They've since found room for dessert.

Now I told you Pat Oliphant retired from cartooning in 2015.

In 2017, he came briefly out of retirement. Perhaps it was the threat to the republic that did it.

And finally, if you have very sharp eyes, you may have noticed a recurring character in these cartoons:

Meet Punk the penguin, Oliphant's alter ego. Just be careful you don't accidentally step on him.