George Santayana is best known as a historian. He’s famous for his observation on the importance of studying history to understand it, and getting it right: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (See citation in right column of the blog.)
Steve Greenberg is a historian cartoonist whose work is published in the Ventura County (California) Star. He offers a Santayana-esque analysis of economics positions of presidential candidates.
Steve Greenberg, published in the Ventura County Star
Click on the thumbnail for a larger version.
Steve Greenberg, Ventura County Star, via Cagle Comics
Greenberg has compressed into 33 words and 5 images a rather complex argument in this year’s presidential campaign.
Is Greenberg right? Do you see why Boss Tweed feared Thomas Nast’s cartoons more than he feared the reporters and editorial writers?
This election campaign we may be able to get the best analysis and commentary from cartoonists. Same as always. Teachers: Are you stockpiling cartoons for use through the year in government, economics, and history?
Other resources:
Note to Cagle cartoons: I think I’m in fair use bounds on this. In any case, I wish you would create an option for bloggers, and an option for teachers who may reuse cartoons year after year. I’ve tried to contact you to secure rights for cartoons in the past, and I don’t get responses. Complain away in comments if you have a complaint, but let us know how we can expose cartoonists to broader audiences and use these materials in our classrooms for less than our entire teacher salary.
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
Sticking by the error
November 17, 2007Neil Boortz has a bottomless well of venom. Boortz appears to be the chief source of the mean-spirited, cut-from-whole-cloth fables about Hillary Clinton being next to Marx.
Checking to see whether he had run a correction of those errors* (he did not), I found this little spittle of acid in that same post from October 8: Boortz wonders about former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger advising Hillary Clinton’s campaign, citing Berger’s admission that he took documents out of the National Archives as a basis for some conspiracy about a cover-up of Bill Clinton’s actions prior to September 11, 2001.
Berger pled to misdemeanor charges. He had the right to view the documents, especially since many of the documents he was reviewing were his own. NARA staff said he took copies of documents only. He was working to prepare a report to the 9-11 Commission at the time.
Neil, here are the facts: Berger was right about Osama bin Laden, years before you ever thought about it. Berger was the guy who was left standing at the White House door, ready to brief President George W. Bush on the need to continue chasing Osama bin Laden and the threat al Quaeda posed to America when Condoleeza Rice informed him that the Bush administration would not continue the chase. Berger was the guy who first got the news that Bush was letting al Quaeda off the hook.
There is great value in getting advice from people who seem to have an ability to see the future, or at least get the present right. Boortz can’t even bring himself to admit error for a silly quiz. We shouldn’t expect him to admit the larger error: Sandy Berger was right about Osama bin Laden and al Quaeda, and it was a nasty, damaging error for the Bush group to brush him off and ignore his warnings. Now we are involved in a great, perhaps misguided war that could have been avoided had Bush listened to Sandy Berger in January 2001.
It must be painful for Boortz to even imagine such things.
It’s a great idea for Berger to advise Clinton, or anyone else, because George W. Bush didn’t allow it, would not listen. Nearly 10,000 Americans are dead, 100,000 to more than a million Iraqis and Afghanis are dead, the U.S. has a multi-trillion-dollar debt, and the entire planet is a lot less safe because of Bush’s error. Let’s not compound the error.
(Boortz’s radio show is carried on a backwater AM station here in Dallas — oddly on KSL’s old clear channel frequency. I’ve never heard it. Is he this reckless with facts on all things? If the FCC were alive today, such inaccuracies might endanger a license, back when broadcasters had to broadcast in the public interest. Nostalgia is appropriate here. Too bad such broadcasters are not required to be licensed like history teachers; worse that Boortz doesn’t work for accuracy himself.)
* No, I don’t really believe Boortz simply erred; but it’s polite to pretend so, so that he may more gracefully make corrections.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.