HUSH: Gary, this weekend you published a color cartoon that compared two presidents. Though neither president was named in the strip, are we right in assuming that the presidents in question were none other than Bill Clinton and George Bush?
GT: Oui.
HUSH: In the strip, a professor is talking to his students and he accuses one president (Bush) of launching, among other things, a ‘bloody...unending war’. He then implies that the only thing the other president (Clinton) ever did was ‘lie about hooking up with an intern’. Is that correct?
GT: That’s right... but tell them the punchline. Oh, it’s a honey!
HUSH: The punch line came in the form of the professor’s question at the end of the strip: "Which of these presidents," he asks, "deserves to be impeached?"
GT: Clever oui?
HUSH: Well...
GT: I mean is there anybody who can put things more succinctly than me in my legendary iconoclastic strip?
HUSH: Well, if we may, we’d like to ask you a few questions regarding the premise of this particular strip.
GT: Certainly. Did I tell you that I’m married to a famous news reporter? I went to Yale you know.
HUSH: Er.. Yes. But back to the strip.
GT: Fire away.
HUSH: First in regard to the claim that Bush launched, as your character says, a ‘bloody and un-ending war’. Is that really accurate?
GT: Certainly. Are you kidding? I just checked with my famous wife this morning and Michael Moore’s going to get back to me shortly. The Iraq war is a ‘quagmire’... a rehash of Vietnam. Oh, how I loved Vietnam. Now that was bloody.
HUSH: Mr. Trudeau. Aren’t all wars ‘bloody’ by definition? Could a ‘bloodless’ war even be counted as such? And could a 3-year old war that has seen the overthrow of a despot who killed hundreds of thousands of his own people really be counted as unending and, by inference, pointless?
GT: There is no way out. Howard Dean has declared it unwinnable. As for bloody, how about over 2100 soldiers dead? Is that bloody enough for you.
HUSH: Well, each death is a tragedy to be sure but that is always true with war. Meanwhile, since those numbers always seem so important to you, have you compared them with the death tolls of other American conflicts in history?
GT: You mean Vietnam?
HUSH: Among others.
GT: You mean there were others? Besides Vietnam?! I went to Yale you know. During the Vietnam era... I’m very proud of that.
HUSH: There were many other American wars, Mr. Trudeau and if we just count battle deaths in say, the Civil War, which was fought over the course of just 4-years, we can see there was a battle death toll of just under a quarter of a million men (and that doesn’t count all the deaths by disease and such). World War II’s battle figures are closer to 300,000 in the same period of time. That makes the death toll in Iraq (and death tolls are an unavoidable fact of all wars) a small fraction of the death tolls of past American conflicts. What is it, less than one one hundredth?
GT: Sir, I am a liberal. Numbers only mean anything to me when they support my thesis. When they don’t, I will always demand a recount. I rest on that particular right at this very moment.
HUSH: Well, let’s move on then to your claim...
GT: My character’s claim, this cartoonist answered coyly.
HUSH: You character’s claim that the only thing President Clinton ever did was to lie about ‘hooking up with an intern’. Is that correct?
GT: The only thing he ever did. Unless it was cutting down that cherry tree... but he told the truth about that to his father... at least at first. Wait... was that him? Kennedy was the first President right?
HUSH: Mr. Trudeau, certainly you’re aware that there was a lot more darkness to President Clinton’s term in office than his misbehavior with Monica Lewinsky.
GT: Name one other thing he ever did.
HUSH: Well, let’s see. Besides a myriad of legal and financial scandals that are too numerous to count...
GT: Okay name a thousand other things he ever did.
HUSH: And what about his administration’s handling of the situation in Waco Texas, which could not possibly be counted as anything less than... uh... troubling?
GT: Religious nuts. Don’t forget that they were religious nuts, even the Christians counted them as a cult. My tolerance only extends to non-religious nuts. At least Clinton didn’t order illegal wire tapping! So there!
HUSH: Did you know that after the Oklahoma City bombings Clinton proposed the setting aside of habeas corpus and asked for the right to do wire-tapping without warrants?
GT: No, that was Bush.
HUSH: Bush was then the Governor of Texas.
GT: Exactly. Which is right next door to Oklahoma. Certainly you can see the obvious connection. Am I right? People help me out here!
HUSH: Clinton also admitted that he’d passed up the chance to deal with Osama bin Laden, and this was after the first attempt on the World Trade Center in 1993.
GT: He later took back that admission. I believe he found a loop hole in the word ‘admission’.
HUSH: In addition to all of this is Clinton’s handling, or lack of handling, of a long dangerous regime in North Korea, a mishandling which many believe to have led directly to the present crisis. And what about his funky and still largely unexplained dealings with China, not to mention, the unending accusations that were leveled against him regarding his surreal extramarital sex life.
GT: There’s nothing wrong with anything that happens between consenting adults. That has always been a liberal mantra. Ommmmm.
HUSH: Mr. Trudeau more than one accusation of harassment was leveled against him. How could anyone claiming to be a feminist as you do stick up for this man? There were literally dozens of such accusations and... even an accusation of rape.
GT: Vast right wing conspiracy. I didn’t invent that phrase but I like it. It sounds like something from a comic strip. Can Hillary Clinton draw I wonder?
HUSH: In short, Mr. Trudeau. Aren’t you treating Mr. Clinton with incredible lightness while stacking numbers in a somewhat over dramatic fashion against George Bush? After all, history is already forming a fair consensus that Clinton’s administration was among the most corrupt, if not the most corrupt, in American history. Was Monica Lewinsky really the only reason his competence and integrity have been laid to question by so many?
GT: Did I tell you I was a Canadian?
HUSH: Thank you Mr. Trudeau.
GT: A famous Canadian married to a famous American journalist. How lucky am I? I went to Yale you know.
HUSH: So did George Bush.
GT: Cest Noir! I am speechless.