The cops stopped me for driving naked in my 1992 Toyota Corolla today. They didn’t buy my explanation that I was campaigning for Congress. But, then, my unclothed body would be more appropriate as an entry in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! (”World’s Scrawniest Man”) than gracing a spread in Cosmo.

I’m relieved that a real Cosmo hunk, Scott Brown, won the special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s senate seat. In no small part because the seat didn’t belong to Ted Kennedy, or any other Kennedy, in the first place. Edward Kennedy was the greatest legislator of our times. But the fact that many Obama supporters in Massachusetts voted for Brown suggests that maybe a small, but possibly decisive, segment of Tuesday’s electorate was simply tired of the Kennedy clan and the Kennedy machine. Martha Coakley represented the latter, and maybe Bay Staters were saying enough is enough?

True, it didn’t help that Ms. Coakley wasn’t up on the basics regarding the Boston Red Sox, or thought that campaigning in front of Fenway Park on a frosty morning would be a drag. However, had I been a Massachusetts voter, her ignorance of baseball would not have bothered me. Her phoniness would have. Not everyone loves sports, and that includes me. Were I running for office, I’d tell reporters that I wish our local teams well, but I couldn’t give a damn about professional sports. Then I would add this:

“Look, a lot of politicians ARE genuine sports fans, and there have even been a few quarterbacks, and a baseball pitcher, elected to Congress. But nothing looks phonier than a politician PRETENDING to be the Philly Fanatic. So please don’t ask me about sports, and I won’t ask you about entomology, ornithology or other subjects that interest me!”

But I digress. The main reason I’m glad Scott Brown won is that a 59-vote majority for the Democrats in the Senate makes a lot more sense than the elusive 60-vote, filibuster-proof majority they’ve been trying to cobble together for the past year. That hapless pursuit has only generated Republican intransigence — and given disproportionate weight to the votes of Joe Lieberman and Ben Nelson.

Reasonable people can disagree over the merits of health care reform, cap-and-trade legislation, or particular nominees to the federal bench. But the fact that 40 senators can hold the entire Congress hostage, month after month, makes our democracy look like a joke to the rest of the world. And it’s making our own voters, in Massachusetts and around the country, either mad as hell or depressed and withdrawn.

Now, I don’t understand all the political machinations it will take to break the legislative logjam — though they might be akin to giving each senator a hot enema. But the resulting relief will be felt by all Americans!

Instead of pushing for the “magic 60” votes to prohibit filibusters, let senators beholden to the banking industry jabber on, ad nauseum, against new bank regulations or a tax on giant Wall Street bonuses.

Ironically, it might be easier to fashion a health reform bill that Olympia Snowe can support, which passes 52 to 48 — with Ben Nelson, Joe Lieberman and Mary Landrieu voting nay. Fox News might even discover, to their horror, that Scott Brown isn’t quite so allied with “Tea Party” activists as they’d hoped. Brown’s up for election to a full term in 34 months, and he might not trust that Massachusetts has become a reliably “red” state on all issues.

Best of all, without the constant need to assemble a filibuster-proof majority, Democrats won’t have to cater to Joe Lieberman’s every narcissistic whim. And for that, ALL Americans can rejoice!

Well, thanks for stopping by. If you’d like to see additional samples of my work, please click here.

Yes, I’ve seen “Avatar,” and I really wasn’t that impressed. Neither was my youngest daughter, who is not quite 10. Unlike me, she had every reason to love “Avatar.” She’s both a sci-fi fan and a student of myths and legends. She knows her Greek myths, gods and goddesses backwards and forwards, which is more than I can say. Yet, by the time “Avatar” reached its “thrilling” conclusion, we were both lauging at the film’s silliness.

Think about it, Mr. Cameron — my young daughter was laughing derisively AT your new blockbuster movie. And this, from a child whose favorite movie is “Titanic.”

Let’s start with the 3-D animation. I always drop my 3-D specs in the bin outside the theater, so the cineplex can profit from “recycling” them for other moviegoers. My children, however, bring them home to add to their growing collection. The funny thing about 3-D is that the effects wear off pretty quickly. The only three-dimensional thing I remember about “Avatar” now are the jellyfish-like creatures floating to and from the “Tree of Souls,” and seemingly in front of your eyes. Woop-de-doo!

Next up, the movie’s dialogue. The English dialogue, I mean. It sucked! I gritted my teeth whenever any of the nefarious humans opened their mouths. The script consisted entirely of empty cliches. The hand gestures were equally banal. Will humans a hundred years from now still be giving each other the thumbs up, fist bumps and high-fives? I thought we were an evolving species?

Now, when it comes to the Na’vi language, I give James Cameron the one ovation “Avatar” truly deserves. The director enlisted the help of professor Paul Frommer from USC to come up with dialogue for the Na’vi. Professor Frommer designed a sophisticated language that sounded totally foreign yet entirely credible, sometimes even beautiful. More believable than Klingon, in my opinion, or even Esperanto. To my ears, it was the most “realistic” invented language since the guttural grunts by the cavemen in “Quest for Fire.”

Then there was the matter of Sigourney Weaver’s gratuitous smoking. Fans of “Avatar,” who’ve seen the movie multiple times, may correct me. But I believe Weaver’s first line in the movie was something like, “Give me a goddam cigarette!”

Why emerge all crabby from a virtual trip to the gorgeous Na’vi forest and demand a cigarette? None of the other human characters were smoking, not even the wicked Colonel Quaritch. I saw no ashtrays on the set. The entire home base seemed like a smoke-free zone to me. How much did the tobacco companies pay the director, or Ms. Weaver, to light up? I’m surprised the smoke didn’t set off the base’s sprinkler system!

…Hey, if Sigourney Weaver’s character, Dr. Augustine, craved nicotine, you’d think the hip director would have had her puff on one of those new  “e-cigarettes.”

However, as a caricaturist, I paid rapt attention to Mr. Cameron’s blue creations, the Na’vi. I didn’t quite see the point in having them 10-feet-tall, but I suppose their tails were an evolutionary adaptation to assist with balance as they scampered through the trees. But if the lithe and essentially naked blue bodies, disguised only by decorative paint, feathers and braids were meant to titillate, it fell flat. I kept wishing for Neytiri to be as lovely as the actress who portrayed her, Zoë Saldana. But I could never get past the massive bridge of her nose. Examining the still photos now, I see but the vaguest resemblance between the two.

In fact, the only actor who genuinely looked like her avatar was Sigourney Weaver, and comically so. Her Na’vi version had weirdly Sigourney-ish eyes. She looked like a badly-drawn caricature of herself — a ten-foot, smoking smurf. I’ve wondered about this resemblance and surmised that the director was concerned that viewers might not connect the sarcastic, no-nonsense Dr. Augustine, at the home base, with her compassionate Margaret Meade-type avatar studying the wise and gentle ways of the Na’vi in the field.

As for the point of “Avatar,” its environmentalist “message” for humanity, and how it stacks up against other fantasy blockbusters, you’ve come to the wrong place. You’ll have to read a real movie review, by a REAL movie critic, to find out. I’m just a popcorn-munching cartoonist.

But remember: When “Avatar” is over, and you’ve left the theater and are trying to find your car in the parking lot, there’s a whole world of 3-D to discover out there — right in front of your eyes!

Well, thanks for stopping by. If you’d like to see additional samples of my work, please click here.

Me? I don’t fly much. I’ve got travel issues. I’m not afraid to fly, mind you — though I’ve never bought the notion that airline travel is much safer than traveling by car. While statistically true, it’s not the whole story. If you’re a skilled driver, don’t tailgate, pay attention to road conditions, don’t use your cell phone or send text messages, and are not drunk or half-asleep, you DO have some control over getting to your destination safely.

Not so, the passengers on the flight to Detroit carrying the Nigerian underpants bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. Well, actually, the passengers DID have some control over the situation and were able to subdue the would-be attacker. But that’s only because Abdulmutallab’s attempt to detonate his underpants went awry. Had his briefs exploded, there may well have been no survivors.

No, when it comes to air travel, I have two monumental fears: 1) Being stuck in the terminal the whole day, or overnight, whether its due to a blizzard or some guy casually walking past an unmanned security checkpoint; 2) being stuck in the plane on the tarmac for hours on end. I have some experience with the former, and the latter gives me nightmares.

…Sometimes I think the airlines are less concerned about a terrorist carrying a box-cutter aboard the plane, than a law-abiding passenger going postal when the plane sits on the tarmac for six hours. The likelihood of the former is still quite remote, while the latter becomes more likely as airline “service” continues to deteriorate.

Now, with the implementation of new guidelines by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and CIA and FBI agents  under order to “connect the dots” as intently as they solve their sudoku puzzles, perhaps we can all fly  with a little less fear of exploding undergarments or footwear? But what’s certain is that negotiating airport  concourses and boarding your flight will be more arduous than ever.

As for privacy concerns raised by libertarians regarding full-body scans at airports, I say, get over it! In fact, the TSA should hire perverts to operate the scanning machines. However ghastly the thought, these degenerates would never be late for work, never get bored, and NOT miss a thing! Mentally balanced TSA employees, on the other hand, would quickly find the task of examining scan after scan intolerably dull. Dangerously dull.

Trust me on this. Having taken life drawing classes during college, I can tell you, the thrill of sketching naked ladies (or guys, depending on the audience) quickly wanes. It was a three-hour class, and our instructor would bang on a big trash barrel with a cane, periodically, to keep students from nodding off and dropping their charcoal sticks on the floor. When that didn’t work, he would have us break for five minutes of calisthenics.

Only the criminally depraved can could stare at body scans all day, five days a week, remain alert and keep our country safe! Keep them chained to their posts for public safety, if necessary, but they’d probably stay put of their own accord.

Better yet, we could do what an editor friend of mine suggested: have everyone show up at airports for a pat-down, wearing only trench coats and sneakers. Or maybe we could all just fly in the buff — passengers, flight attendants and pilots alike? Who knows — mass displays of public nudity might eliminate the threat from Muslim extremists altogether!

Fly naked? I’ll do it if you will.

Well, thanks for stopping by. If you’d like to see additional samples of my work, please click here.

Here’s the simple solution to all of our problems with health care reform: GIVE SENATOR JOE LIEBERMAN EVERYTHING HE WANTS! Absolutely everything. The Senate may be half-way there way already, and the rest of Congress should follow suit.

Really, the man from Aetna, er, Connecticut, will stand for nothing less!

Public Option — gone! Medicare for folks age 55 to 64 — kaput! My advice? Whatever amendments Joe wants kept out of the final bill, kill ‘em! Whatever Lieberman-authored amendments are presented on the floor of the Senate — praise them mightily and vote them in, unanimously!  Eliminate all corporate taxes for Aetna? If Joe insists upon it, thy will be done! And should Joe still feel the urge to filibuster the final measure, for God’s sake let the man kvetch! On whatever topics he wants, for as long as he wants. Television broadcasting should be locked onto C-Span, so we can hang onto Joe’s every public utterance, and laugh at every one of his lame, recycled jokes. Let his remarks in the public record be “revised and extended” in perpetuity.

Let’s face it: Whatever watered-down, unfathomable hodgepodge of health care “reforms” finally emerges from the U.S. Senate, it will have Joe Lieberman’s sticky fingerprints all over it. And when the Senate and House are ready to reconcile their differences, let Joe Lieberman set the agenda. The less we see of Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid during this messy process, or Mitch McConnell or John Boener, the better. It should be “The Joe Show.”

When the massive bill finally reaches President Obama’s desk, let’s not call it “health care reform,” or even “health INSURANCE reform,” for it won’t reflect either of those noble pursuits. Rather, the legislation should be heralded as…LIEBERCARE! Let’s have the Health & Human Services Department issue all Americans…LIEBERCARDS. And each card should carry a small hologram of Joe Lieberman’s clownish visage in its top right corner.

Then, whatever goes awry with the implementation of the so-called reforms, be it wholescale rationing, death panels or higher taxes, we can all blame it on one man — Connecticut’s august junior senator. Not Obama, Not the Democrats. Not even the just-say-no Republicans. Just Lieberman. After all, if anything about “Liebercare” goes the least bit right, you can bet ol’ Joe will take credit for it.

Yes, the sarcasm here is intentional. Thanks for putting up with it. If you’d like to see additional samples of my work, please click here.

In an effort to boost my finances and exposure in these troubled economic  times, I am hearby officially linking myself romantically to Tiger Woods. Never mind that I am a 57-year-old male cartoonist who has never played real golf and is clobbered by his own children at mini-golf. But that’s my day job. By night I am transformed, via blonde wig, stilettos, a model-thin physique, creamy skin and luscious eyes, into a siren of the 19th hole!

So, I’m waiting, TMZ! And here’s your headline: COUGAR MAULS TIGER.

But, hey — I’m joking! Really! None of this is true. Not the wig or the stilettos. Not the earlier rumors linking me to golf legend John Daly — though, had it been true, he could have claimed the excuse of inebriation at the time. I don’t even like the game, and think golf courses are a monuental waste of the earth’s resources. I’ll bet Al Gore doesn’t play golf. However, when I was a kid, my neighborhood chums and I used to imagine ourselves sneaking onto golf courses early in the morning and turning them into pretend battlefields for our World War II reenactments. But we never had the courage to pull it off. Too bad — those sand traps at the Cherry Valley Country Club could have been our El Alamein!

Truth is, I have a touch of sympathy for Mr. Woods. As my wife likes to point out, everyone needs to go through, as she terms it, a ****head stage,” especially guys, on their way to a semblance of maturity. But Tiger Woods has been swinging a golf club in front of the cameras since he was 3-years-old. The man has grown up as a sports and corporate endorsement phenom. He attended Stanford University for two years rather than immediately turn pro at 18. He was held up as the portrait of propriety and sobriety, a role-model for young athletes the world over. And, always, Tiger made a public display of his devotion to his hard-driving dad and adoring mom.

Tiger Woods never had the chance to be the typical American jackass during his formative years. And, as my wife cautions, the longer that urge is held back, the greater the collateral damage!

Wherever Tiger Woods is right now, whether huddled with his attorneys and publicist, pleading for continued fealty from his sponsors, or sailing on his yacht with Elin to Sweden, in hopes of patching up his shattered family life, he can still dream of a life after his ****head stage has passed. He can achieve one of the noblest feats in all human drama: The Great American Comeback!

Well, thanks for stopping by. If you’d like to see additional samples of my work, please click here.

I admit to swinging both ways, sometimes, when I express my editorial viewpoint. It’s just too easy to poke fun of politicians whether or not I disagree with their policies. Like most editorial cartoonists, I’m easily amused but rarely outraged by the shenanigans in Washington.

So, judging from the cartoons that illustrate this blog, just how do I feel about President Obama’s new strategy in Afghanistan?

Basically, I remain dubious that our continued involvement in Afghanistan will lead to anything worthwhile. The “graveyard of empires” cliché, in my opinion, has a ring of truth to it. And Barack Obama’s effort to defuse the I.E.D. that is Afghanistan, without setting off a chain-reaction in Pakistan, Iran and beyond, may prove the most daunting task of his presidency.

On the other hand, I don’t really agree with my lead cartoon here. You might think I oppose the 18-month deadline we’ve set before the scheduled draw-down of troops begins. But that was just a cheap shot. Actually, I think the deadline is a fine idea, and I suspect politicians opposing Obama’s public timetable are being disingenuous.

Their argument, of course, is that we’re “telegraphing” our departure time to the the Taliban and al-Qaeda. That they’ll sit back and sip tea, set off roadside bombs, and wait until we leave.

But we’ve already been in Afghanistan for eight years! It seems clear to me that the Taliban will remain in Kandahar, in some form, whether 18 months or 18 years from now. I guess John McCain and Lindsey Graham (among the most mild of Republican skeptics) actually believe that we can achieve a concrete victory against the Taliban — ending with Mullah Omar signing surrender papers aboard a U.S. warship in the Persian Gulf. And if they DON’T believe that nonsense, perhaps they’d prefer an open-ended occupation of Afghanistan — which, you’ll recall, worked so very well for the Soviets twenty years ago!

Hey — how about a DMZ stretching along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan’s tribal provinces? Our brave soldiers, artillery at the ready, could peer through binoculars at baggy-clothed Islamic extremists leading their donkeys through the narrow, rocky passages of North Waziristan, laden with Persian rugs concealing poppies and pipe bombs. For the next fifty years!

No, it seems to me that Obama has set a deadline to determine whether General Stanley McChrystal’s surge can win Afghan hearts and minds. To determine whether Hamid Karzai can get his act together and clamp down on the kleptocracy he and his brother lead. To determine if Pakistan can decide which side of the War on Terror it’s actually on. And, who knows, maybe see if the Taliban has a few practical politicians amidst its legions of murderous malcontents — people with whom Washington, Kabul and Islamabad can deal with in mutually self-serving ways.

Nothing good may come of Obama’s deadline. We’ll find out soon enough. But eight years of open-ended, rudderless American military intervention in Afghanistan has only made matters worse. Does anyone, including McCain, Graham, Mitch McConnell or Glenn Beck, really believe that an open-ended surge (let’s call it “Operation Petraeus Forever”) could truly pacify southwest Asia? And that such a military strategy would maintain the unwavering support of our men and women in uniform, their families back home, and the American taxpayers? Perhaps that’s exactly the policy our enemies would like us to follow?

So, maybe Obama’s 18-month strategy deserves a chance to succeed? Besides, had the president decided to withdraw troops from Afghanistan now, it would surely take at least 18 months to bring everybody home.

As for General McChrystal, I don’t really think of him as another William Westmoreland, let alone Custer. I wish him, and our troops, all success. My caricature is just another cheap shot. It’s how I earn a living.

Well, thanks for stopping by. If you’d like to see additional samples of my work, please click here.

Over a long career drawing caricatures and editorial cartoons, I can report that Sarah Palin is one of the greatest gifts ever to our profession! She’s more fun than Bill and Hillary combined. She has the intellectual wattage of George W. Bush coupled with the paranoia of Richard Nixon! And that presents endless comic opportunities for cartoonists. The fact that Palin was a former beauty pageant contestant only helps matters. Contrary to what many lay people think, beauty queens and supermodels are easy to caricature.

So, I LOVE Sarah Palin! Not enough to buy her memoir, of course. That would mean a SERIOUS commitment in time and cash. Besides, Ms. Palin may have taken some “poetic license” in writing her autobiography, at least its chapters on the election, creating an alternate reality for herself. That’s what editorial cartoonists like to do — make things up as they go along. We only happen upon the truth once in awhile, usually by accident. Otherwise, we offer lazy political analysis, inflate grotesque rumors and deliver sarcastic cheap shots. Not unlike Sarah Palin’s style of governance.

But let’s get back to caricature and the subject at hand: Sarah Palin’s face. Starting with her eyes.

Eyes are the key to drawing successful caricature, as personality is most immediately expressed through them. Palin’s eyes are always wide open and quick to judge (usually harshly). They dance with sarcasm and burn with resentment. She’s got axes to grind and wildlife to skin! As for eye makeup, Ms. Palin applies it like a pro. Not in a trashy way (though it’s always fun when some political figure ladles on the mascara and eye-shadow — a la Argentina’s president, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner). Rather, Sarah Palin could pass for a cosmetics technician at an upscale, Middle-America department store such as Nordstrom. Her makeup expertise makes my job easier!

No doubt about it, Sarah Palin looks great at age forty-five! I trust she won’t someday “airbrush” the crows feet lines away from her eyes with Botox. They add character, a touch of gravitas, and don’t in the least bit make her look “old.” And let’s not forget that chin! Palin’s facial bone structure, over all, is impressive. But few have a chin as expressive as Palin’s: jutting, clenched in defiance and certitude, in a way that comedian Sarah Silverman would describe as expressing both “arrogance and ignorance.” Palin knows what she knows (to know more would be “elitist”) — and, dang it, she knows what’s right!

As Sarah Palin sets off on her grand book tour, she has let the world know of her displeasure with Newsweek having featured her on its cover in shorts and running shoes. Seems a bit odd, as Palin, a dedicated jogger, posed for a photo spread in Runner’s World just this past August. Nonetheless, she declared the Newsweek pose undignified and the magazine “sleazy.”

I suspect another reason for her objection to the pose. “Sarah Barracuda,” the take-no-prisoners hockey mom, the fierce basketball point guard from high school, has the sturdy legs of a roller-derby queen, not a Rockette. There’s meat on those thighs, and she’s a touch thick around the ankles. Having watched her swimsuit pageant walk on YouTube, I suspect the legs might have cost her the Miss Alaska crown back in 1984. (I haven’t seen the talent part of the pageant).

In terms of faces to draw, political cartoonists have much to be thankful for these days. Barack Obama has a great head — a cranium made for sculpture, interesting in its many angles. His wide, electric smile, second in size only to Jimmy Carter’s, contrasts markedly with his strong brow and flashing eyes. Nancy Pelosi has the eyes of a dragonfly, and the habit of smiling broadly at inappropriate times. But, for the sheer fun of drawing caricature, Sarah Palin’s face is hard to beat! Editorial cartoonists wish her a long and prosperous future, at our expense!

My fantasy caricature of the former governor? Field-dressing a moose in the buff, amid the snowdrifts. Should I ever draw that cartoon, you’ll see it here first!

Well, thanks for stopping by. If you’d like to see additional samples of my work, please click here.

Here’s what Dick Cheney’s daughter, Liz, believes: A committee of five Norwegians awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama because he represents a weaker, more pliant America. An America that can no longer “go it alone” when necessary. Dear old dad, of course, wholeheartedly agrees with her.

Are Cheney & Co are onto something? Maybe, but in a perverse way. With regards to power, perhaps we’ve entered a multi-polar world, and there’s no going back? Maybe the difference between Barack Obama and the Cheneys is that the president understands this paradigm shift, and they don’t.

For instance, just saying, over and over, that the USA has the “world’s greatest health care system,” doesn’t make it so. Proclaiming we’re THE GREATEST! in just about every category is surely off the mark as well. Baseball fans can root like crazy for their home team, even when it’s getting clobbered in the World Series. Their devotion is admirable. But when the series ends, and their team is bested four game to zip, it doesn’t mean that the better team lost.

Long gone are the heady days since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Evil Empire, when the United States could claim its trophy as the world’s sole Superpower. Now we share the stage with a United Europe (more or less) and a resurgent Russia. China is expanding and transforming its economy so rapidly that they are likely to overtake us in GDP within the next ten to twenty years. Even India and Brazil are nipping at our heels!

During the Bush-Cheney Era, we clung tightly to the notion that the world couldn’t survive without our “tough-love” leadership. The result? We got bogged down in two unfinished wars, offering murky exits at best. We failed to curtail Iran’s and North Korea’s maniacal pursuit of atomic weapons. And we nearly drove our economy off a cliff, sending the world into the deepest recession in 70 years. (Though, to be fair, the Clinton-Greenspan Era deserves an equal share of the blame here).

America still tries to rally the world round its leadership, but the calls ring a bit hollow now. And while the Norwegians, the rest of Europe, and nearly every country save Israel adores Barack Obama, will they follow his lead? I have my doubts. As Nicolas Sarkozy or Angela Merkel might describe American primacy: “That’s SOOOO Twentieth Century!” And now it looks as though China is set to leap ahead of the USA in green technologies. As New York Times columnist Tom Friedman put it: If you like importing oil from the Middle East, you’ll LOVE importing solar energy from China!

So, what’s the USA exporting to the world these days? Offhand, I can only think of three things: entertainment; soldiers; and obesity.

Take entertainment. From “Where the Wild Things Are” to Lady Gaga, America continues its long reign as Numero Uno in the entertainment world. That’s not going to change anytime soon. If you can make it big here, you WILL make it big everywhere!

Meanwhile, our armed forces are second to none. We are the Usain Bolt of armies, and the Michael Phelps of navies. If other nations were willing to pay us what we’re worth, we could, literally, fight all their wars for them.

…Makes you wonder: Rather than have our Marines teach Afghan farmers how to plant peppers instead of poppies, why not have the Afghan government pay for our fighting force with the proceeds from their opium trade? We could battle the Taliban for market share. (Hey, just kidding!)

As for obesity, well, thanks to the miracle of high-fructose corn syrup, we are recreating the world in our own bloated image. (Our current, svelte president notwithstanding).

So what’s Barack Obama to do now that he’s a Nobel laureate? The Norwegian selection committee has a history of making odd choices when it comes to the peace prize. And leaders currently holding office when awarded the honor — be it Woodrow Wilson, Anwar Sadat, Mikhail Gorbachev or Yasser Arafat — haven’t fared well, at home, in the aftermath.

President Wilson barnstormed the country to sell his League of Nations after World War I. The exhaustion from his travels may have helped trigger the massive stroke that confined him to bed for the rest of his presidency. His get-well card from the United States Senate? After 55 days of debate, the Senate rejected the League of Nations and the Treaty of Versailles, 53-38.

Yasser Arafat, who shared the 1994 prize with Israeli leaders Yatzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, was hardly a Prince of Peace. Six years later, Arafat rejected Israeli prime minster Ehud Barak’s gutsy blueprint for a “two-state solution,” and responded to Ariel Sharon’s ill-timed and provocative visit to the Temple Mount by unleashing the bloody, second intifada.

Mikhail Gorbachev, who deserved even more credit for defanging the Soviet Union than Ronald Reagan, received the 1990 prize for his policy of “glasnost and perestroika.” His Nobel medal got a loud Bronx cheer from the folks back home, where he had something like an 8% approval rating. A year later, Gorby found himself under house arrest in his Crimean dacha. He was briefly returned to the Kremlin, along with his family and his beloved cat, but the Gorbachev Era was over.

Former secretary of state Henry Kissinger shared the 1973 peace prize with his Vietnamese adversary, Le Duc Tho, but we all know how that turned out. And Anwar Sadat, who bravely saw the wisdom of NOT fighting Israel, may well have paid for his half of the 1978 Nobel prize with his life!

So, best of luck, President Obama, when you travel to Oslo in December to accept your award. You’ll be the picture of grace and humility, I’m certain. You’ll deliver an elegant speech for the ages. But don’t forget to mention Afghanistan!

Once again, thanks for stopping by. If you’d like to see additional samples of my work, please click here.

My view on health care reform will outrage many: I support a single-payer system. There, I said it.

BUT, for those of you who’ve just written me off as a “socialist,” please bear with me for a few paragraphs before you…pull the plug. Or call me a LIAR!

At this point in the debate, I don’t care WHAT kind of single-payer system we devise. It could be public…or PRIVATE. We could copy the British national health care system, or we could all pay premiums to a single, private, mega-insurance monopoly. 

We need ONE health insurer. No more. No less.

During his speech on health care reform to a joint session of Congress, President Obama cited several tragic cases where our broken insurance system abruptly shortened patients’ lives. But I don’t need to cite similar tragedies to make my point. I need only talk about my own, garden variety experiences in dealing with the “world’s greatest health care system.” 

Two years ago, I fell off a ladder while painting my dining room ceiling. More accurately, the ladder toppled over, tossing my scrawny body across the room. No cause to sue the ladder manufacturer — I alone was to blame. It was late at night, and I was rushing to finish applying a coat of primer so I could get to bed. The ladder got to rocking and…kaboom! 

It was my first serious injury. My femur broke in three places, including a nasty compound fracture which produced blood and gore. There was also a spiral fracture running nearly half the length of the femur. And I’d broken my left elbow, too. Amazingly, the tub of primer landed face up on the floor, right next to my head Thank God for small favors — primer, once it dries, is permanent!

I’d always wondered what broken bones felt like? Now I knew. It was midnight, and I was hollering loud enough to wake up the neighbor’s dogs. My wife called 911. The EMTs showed up within fifteen minutes. Wedged as I was between the dining room table and the window seat, the EMTs had to figure out how to gather me up without harming my back before they could load me into the ambulance. 

The half-mile trip to the hospital took all of four minutes. Treatment at the ER bordered on torture. Dick Cheney would have approved. But violations of the Geneva Conventions were necessary to determine the extent of my injuries. At one point, I lifted my head up from the gurney and asked the doctor peering down at me, “This isn’t going to become an episode of ‘House,’ is it?” He grinned and then proceeded to catheterize me. “TRAUMATIC INSERTION!” he barked to the nurse who was jotting things onto a clipboard pad. That meant the insertion had drawn blood.

I was scheduled for emergency surgery at 6:30 that morning. It took three hours to clean up the wound, repair my femur with a 10-inch titanium rod, and sew me up. The orthopedist had hoped to untangle the gnarl of damaged ligaments around my left knee, but he was unable to do so  — thereby limiting the ultimate range of motion of my left leg.

My hospital stay lasted a week, to insure that the open wound caused by the compound fracture would not become infected. The hospital environment was godawful. The parade of nurses and technicians was, for the most part, a tour de force of arrogance and indifference. The food was vomitous. The room was dirty, with an unemptied potty chair in the corner by the bath. One of my three roommates that week was psychotic. At one point, I dropped my plastic urinal, which was filled nearly to the rim. A nurse’s assistant, brand new to the job, rushed to clean up the mess — only to be called away and scolded by an R.N., telling her not to perform an orderly’s job. The puddle of piss sat there, unattended, for more than an hour. Mere existence in that hospital seemed to put me at risk of serious infection!

Despite these indignities, I was reasonably pleased with my orthopedic surgeon, and the physical therapists who worked with me afterwards were great. Today, my fourteen-inch scar is almost invisible, and I walk with my normal gait and speed — though not without pain or diminished flexibility. My knee looks weird, but it could have been much worse. Compared to some of your own hospital experiences, I got off easy!

Yet, during my week in the hospital, and the three full months of recuperation at home, I learned just how poorly our health insurance system functions. There is little or no choice, but there IS rationing of health care. And there is waste and inefficiency galore — much of it to the benefit of insurers, doctors and hospitals alike. 

The half-mile ambulance ride to the hospital cost over $700, most of which I had to pay myself. I asked the insurance claims adjuster why the ride was so expensive? She blithely replied that the uninsured, using ambulances as cab service to the ER for minor ailments, are jacking up the costs. 

Upon my arrival in the ER that fateful night, the doctors asked me what medicines I was taking? In divulging that information, I was tuning my pharmaceutical routine over to the hospital. The hospital would determine if, when and how much medicine I could take — and THEY would administer it. So, the Albutirol I took only occasionally to treat mild asthma would, I soon learned, be administered to me every day by a respiratory therapist. At grandly inflated hospital prices!

One evening, while receiving my Albutirol treatment, the psychotic roommate went berserk, convinced that flies and mosquitoes were buzzing about the room and eating him alive! Panicked, he began rattling this bed. Then he began rattling mine! The jostling knocked my nebulizer out of whack. The face mask filled up with drug-laced water vapor and my eyes began to burn. The bitter taste in my mouth was sickening. I rang the bell for assistance, repeatedly, but the nurses ignored it. I waited a few moments, then pressed the buzzer four times fast. There was an eruption of laughter from the nurse’s station. Finally, I yanked the mask off my face and let the Albutirol steam pour into the air. The respiratory therapist arrived about ten minutes later, on her regular schedule. She wondered what the hell was going on? By then, the psycho, babbling and drooling, had drifted off to la-la land.

For the privilege of staying at the “Hospital St. Ritz,” my insurer was charged $1,600 a day for room service alone. Thank God there wasn’t a mini-bar! The entire bill for the ER, surgery, hospital room and in-house therapy came to $60,000. My insurer paid for nearly all of it, and for that I’m eternally grateful. But I had to deal with insurance agents, and claims adjusters as though it were a full-time job. I was forever on hold, calling the wrong department, or typing detailed letters. And I had to do a selling job, over and over, to convince these industry bureaucrats that I had, in fact, suffered serious injury.

                    *          *          *          *          *

…On ordinary visits to a doctor, I typically sit in the waiting room for at least an hour, sometimes two, before I’m allowed into the “inner sanctum” of the doctor’s office. Then, I’m ushered into a little room, where I’m left to wait for another twenty minutes before the doctor deigns to see me. The consultation lasts about six minutes. 

(Don’t get me wrong. I don’t wish to portray doctors as ogres. One physician of mine, in particular, takes his time with me and takes copious notes. But he’s an exception to the routine).

Virtually every one of you knows this dreadful routine. It remains one of the great mysteries of modern medicine: How can a patient wait two hours for a six-minute appointment? If you’re visiting a group practice, there may be ten medical secretaries crowded behind the front desk, juggling a hundred different insurance companies trying to limit or deny referrals and tests for patients. Hostility lurks just under the surface. Their job seems like a living hell to me.

When your G.P. recommends a specialist, you go to THAT specialist. Few of us have the time or information to make educated choices about doctors. But once you start going to specialists, as so many middle-aged folks do, there’s no escape. You’ve got to keep going back for more tests and consultations — if only to insure that your insurance company will continue partial coverage of the medicines your doctor has prescribed.

There’s got to be a better way to do this. I’m under no illusion that a government-run system, or a private, mega-insurance company, would make health care easy or cheap. The rich may have choices; they always do — whether it’s medical care, college education or asset management. But the rest of us, the toiling masses, have only false choices. We have the insurance plan our employer (or, in my case, my WIFE’S employer) provides. We go to the specialists our G.P. selects for us. We go to the nearest hospital if we’re injured. And when our insurer raises a premium or denies a procedure, we get by with less or do without. 

Now, efforts to reform health care are in the hands not only of Barack Obama and Kathleen Sebelius, but of members of Congress with names like Max Baucus and Chuck Grassley, Olympia Snowe, Nancy Pelosi — and, yes, Joe Wilson. And just like when we go to the doctor’s office, we sit and wait. And wait some more. We’ve been waiting for decades.

On that grim note, thanks for stopping by. If you’d like to see additional samples of my work, please click here.

The Obama administration is mired in the swamp of health care reform. Perhaps it’s time to change the subject? Time to stand up and shout, “IT’S AFGHANISTAN, STUPID!”

Will Afghanistan be Barack Obama’s Vietnam? NO. It will be his… Afghanistan. And that’s trouble enough!

First, a bit of background:

The Reagan administration liked to crow about how they’d WON the cold war. Their secret weapon? Ronald Reagan had bankrupted the Soviet empire into oblivion! 

I never entirely bought this argument. I thought Mikhail Gorbachev deserved equal credit. He’d seen the graffiti on the (Berlin) wall. By the time Gorby climbed to the peak of the Politburo, he knew that the Soviet Union was kaput. The Soviets barely had enough clunky, dial telephones and rabbit-eared TVs to go around, while the West was embarking on the Information Age. Gorbachev’s mission was to guide Mother Russia to a “soft landing,” where she might reform herself and join the ranks of respectable, modern nations.

But I DO believe that Reagan’s policy of bankrupting the Soviet Union was a huge help. The Pentagon upped the ante, exponentially, when it came to military spending. We engaged the Soviet Union in proxy wars around the world. We invaded tiny Grenada, just to keep the Soviets form landing on an airstrip. We threatened the Kremlin with the Big Kahuna of missile defense — the “Star Wars” program. And we poured zillions into Afghanistan, to help the Mujahideen roust the Red Army from every pile of rubble. 

In short, the U.S. forced the U.S.S.R. to spend like drunken sailors to prop up their sclerotic regime. We spent like drunken sailors ourselves, but we could better afford the tab. Reagan & Co. snickered as the U.S.S.R. literally fell on its rusty swords. The mighty Red Army was humiliated in Afghanistan, driven from the unforgiving dust and rocks, hungry and unpaid, by a ragtag bunch of gnarly peasants wearing sneakers and…rags!

Now, two decades later, it looks as though much of the world is snickering at us. The Chinese. The Iranians. Many in the European Union. And, most especially, the Russians. Of course, Vladimir Putin tries to keep apoker face at all times. But I’ve detected a wry smile gracing the prime minister’s face when he practices judo. Or strips to the waist and flexes his pecs in the great Siberian outdoors. 

And no wonder! We’re as knee-deep in the Big Dusty as the Soviet Union was. We’ve got a vastly superior military, of course. And we actually pay our soldiers! But we’re still stuck, and nobody knows how to win or how to get out. Honorably or otherwise. And we spend, spend, spend! Soviet history could have been instructive in this regard. British history, too. 

But isn’t Afghanistan critical to the War on Terror? Isn’t Afghanistan’s security vital to our own? All true — and therein lies the conundrum. Problem is, we’re in a race for hearts and minds with the Taliban. We can build a nice road that leads to a spanking, new school house, outside Kabul. The Taliban can assemble kids in a bombed out police station, feed them a cup of lamb and rice, and call it a Madrassa.

Meanwhile, Afghan president Hamid Karzai has grown rather sick of us, and we of him. His grand, green cape is in tatters, and he might not survive a second round of voting. Abdullah Abdullah might offer a pleasant change, briefly. But we’ll tire of each other, too, in short order. Afghan citizens will continue to gripe about corruption and the lack of basic services, and we’ll wring our hands about opium trafficking and women trapped in burkas. Daily life will change at a glacial pace. 

So, what to do? Don’t look at me — I’m just a cartoonist, unqualified to suggest anything besides a few lame, visual jokes. I might ask why you’re even reading this column? 

…But it DOES strike me that our Predator drones are having success tracking down and whacking senior members of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. And keeping the rest hunkered down. True, Pakistan gets mad whenever a drone whizzes over its border and hits a terrorist cell in Waziristan. But Pakistan has a problem with anger management, in general. 

Still, the Predators keep finding their targets. Seems to be more effective, and less expensive (in blood and treasure), than full-scale warfare or nation-building in Afghanistan. It’s hard to “clear, hold and build” piles of rubble punctuated by poppy fields. Why re-enact the charge of the Light Brigade? Just maybe, in dealing with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, less can be more? 

Well, enough of my yammering. Read something serious! But if you’d like to see more samples of my work, please click here.