Damn right it should have run !!! Perfect. (re: the reject corner-Bush-Ahmadinejad elections 6-09')

Absolutely should have run. With a link to an election story, I put this on my Facebook page: WE'RE going to teach THEM about democracy?! Seems they have less tolerance for stolen elections than us: "Moussavi remained defiant, and thousands of his supporters flooded the streets of Tehran to protest what they saw as a stolen election..."

The truth hurts. ... And should always be published.

Are you kidding?! The first thought was, "Oh wow, why didn't we riot and burn things when Gore got screwed?" And our election was almost more obvious!

Run it! Or run it with Gore calling up the "loser" and consoling him..

Great job; love your work.

RE: Your editor didn't buy your irony argument?
"It looked to him like a gratuitous slap at our ex-President."
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + +

As IF the voting *irregularities* that ELECTED "Dubya" in the 2000 vote (FL) and 2004 (OH) were not ENOUGH of a "Gratuituous" SLAP in the face of *WE THE PEOPLE*, eh?!

Chan, the sad thing here is that you have purposely illustrated Dubya getting the best of you.

I'm no W supporter, in fact I think in the next few decades we're probably going to see enough info leaked to deem him the worst president to date. I just wanted to qualify my statements with that so people don't think I'm just blindly defending him.

This country is not a democracy. If you doubt that, just recite the Pledge of Allegiance. You won't say "democracy" once, but you will say "republic", because that's what we are.

No one got duped when Gore lost. W didn't cheat, the system didn't fail, and no foul play was afoot. The system worked exactly as it was intended.

If you aren't motivated or smart enough to understand our system (and specifically the Electoral College), then complaining about what happened to Gore just makes you look silly.

In the cartoon, Bush is right. There's nothing wrong with Gore getting the popular vote and not becoming president. Let it go, sore losers. Maybe help yourself to a poli-sci book, because the system worked.

Ryan,

You are right. The system worked exactly as it was intended, and that's the problem.

We have moved past the time when propertied gentry felt that the electoral process, and the stability of the young nation, needed statutory protection from the will of the unwashed, uneducated mob in the wilderness. It is time to amend the system, and junk the Electoral College. That's the point of the cartoon.

Chan, thanks for the explanation. I agree with your conclusion, so I think I should amend my objection to instead state that the illustration will likely be misread.

Your point about "arcane means" is accurate, but I think it will be overshadowed by the mention of corruption in Iran. I think the comic will be interpreted by many (most?) as saying that the corruption in Iran's system is mirrored by the corruption in our own, with many folk still believing the Gore/Bush results to be corrupt.

There are even a few comments above mine that seem to imply foul play in that election, and overall I think there's still a substantial percentage of the population that don't understand what happened and why. So while I think you have a valid point, I think it's very prone to misunderstanding, as your editor and myself demonstrated. I think people are a lot less likely to make the jump from democratic problems in Iran to toppling the Electoral College than they are to just assume it's a "cheap shot" at Bush for what many still (erroneously) believe was a cheated election.

Ryan,

You might have valid points to make. But you lost me
when you wrote the following to Chan Lowe:

"If you aren't motivated or smart enough to understand our system (and specifically the Electoral College), then complaining about what happened to Gore just makes you look silly."

Isn't it possible for
you to disagree with Mr. Lowe, without making a personal attack on him?

Obviously, his knowledge of
our Electoral College exceeds yours--as does his class.

Actually, for the record, that comment was not intended for Chan directly, though I can clearly see why it was read that way.

I only intended my first sentence to be directed at the author, with the rest being a general response to the comments that came before mine, but I should have made that much more clear. I'm sorry for the confusion. I've been reading this comic everyday for a year or so now and I usually really enjoy it. I have no doubt he knows more about this stuff than me.

I agree with Mr. Mauker.

A gratuitous cheap shot.

I agree with Mr. Mauker.

A gratuitous cheap shot.

There is only one problem I see with the cartoon. The "bubble" with dubya's words would undoubtedly have something misspelled in real life.

Great cartoon! And even better explanation of why our electoral system today is in itself a problem!

An editor's job is to save artists and writers from embarrassing themselves in public.

But there is nothing embarrassing about this cartoon. It is truth and sometimes truth can be damned funny...in a laughing just to keep from crying kinda way of course.

i assume you would be just as enthusiastic about the same cartoon with obama making that comment after reading the headline, "IRANIAN PRESS IN THE TANK FOR AHMADINEJAD".

how ironic it was this past week with the american press reporting with disdain that the iranian media were only showing the pro-ahmedinajad rallies.

yes, that same american media that we all saw covering the most recent american presidential election.

I had wondered what would have happened in 2001 if we had taken to the streets to protest the seating of Bush as they are doing in Iran.

Would the troops have been called out to quell the riots?

Something tells me we would have looked very much like Iran today.