Two-fer

When I was brainstorming this morning on cartoon ideas about the North Korean bomb story, I came up with two separate captions for the same little sketch in my sketchbook.

Locals will know that our Ohio Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell was called "a nut" by President Bush as returns came in slowly during the 2004 election, according to Bob Woodward's recent book. Blackwell, who says he's been a family friend of the Bushes for half of his adult life, denies that the Prez would ever call him such a thing. Those of us who've tracked Ken's career have no problem imagining anyone calling him such a thing. Hence, a local cartoon.

At the same time I was playing with the words "rogue state" and imagined Bush thinking of California this way, in light of the Kyoto-like agreement Governor Ahnold recently signed with the rest of the world on that "rogue state's" behalf. Why not do both? Hence, a national cartoon which I'll send out in syndication.

And the biggest success of the day: I managed to avoid drawing Kim Jong Il's hair as a mushroom cloud, like virtually every other cartoonist has done!