The Mallet O' Understanding

I wonder if Pearls Before Swine is making a comment about United States foreign policy? Click the picture to enlarge it to a readable size.


Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis
Today I heard one of the gaggle of Republican hack radio talk show hosts saying that since one explosive device in Iraq had Sarin in it, critics of the war in Iraq can't claim that Iraq didn't have WMD; the Bush administration wasn't lying after all. I can't speak for all critics of the war, but I still say Bush administration officials were lying when they said they knew with no doubt that Saddam Hussein had amassed stockpiles of WMD and was rapidly developing more:

Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
Dick Cheney, Vice President
Speech to VFW National Convention
8/26/2002

Another:

The Iraqi regime . . . possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas.
George W. Bush, President
Cincinnati, Ohio Speech
10/7/2002

Billmon at Whiskey Bar [Alas, the Bar is closed as I write this] compiled these quotes when it became apparent that stockpiles of WMD would not be found, and Republican spin-doctors were attempting to claim that Bush administration officials had never said that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.]

On a distantly related topic, several works of the political caricaturist James Gillray have been posted to Giornale Nuovo. Here is one--a caricature of Edmund Burke:
Cincinnatus in Retirement, coloured print by James Gillray, 1782. [Click to enlarge.]
Caricatures such as this were the ancestors of political cartoons and eventually the comic strips (like Pearls Before Swine) that we love so well. Quoting Giornale Nuovo: "During the 1780s, he [James Gillray] worked for a number of publishers, and accepted commissions from all-comers, attacking Whigs and Tories alike with equal venom." Interesting--he was a hack for hire. Is that better than a partisan hack?

But let the righteous be joyful;
let them exult before God;
let them be jubilant with joy.
Sing to God, sing praises to his name;
lift up a song to him
who rides upon the clouds
--his name is the LORD--
be exultant before him.
Father of orphans and protector of widows
is God in his holy habitation.
God gives the desolate a home to live in;
he leads out the prisoners to prosperity.
--Psalm 68:3-6a(or Psalm 67 in the Roman Catholic numbering)