I drew this cartoon after I heard the phrase used by a pundit, something about being pulled into another’s rhetoric. This is what politicians do. They repeat and repeat until we believe them. They say what the pollsters think people want to hear, and drill it back to them.  They take opponents words out of context and quote them so often, that it seeps into people’s consciousness. “Mitt likes to fire people” is one such example of a phrase taken out of context in the recent New Hampshire primary circus. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t (he probably does)–but it is an idea/phrase that will stick in some people’s minds, even if they know it was used incorrectly.

Not that it matters at the moment, for it seems Mitt will be the GOP nominee. But maybe we will hear Obama using a version of that phrase. Let’s hope he comes up with some new rhetoric, I am ready to be wowed.  I’m sure his people are working on it as we speak.

Last week, I got a cartoon okay-ed by The New Yorker, which means my editor emailed me and said they wanted to buy a rough cartoon that I submitted that week.  This one was political, and they wanted to run it in the next issue, which meant I had to do the finished drawing and email it to them by the next day. I love it when this happens…it has happened a few times for me. Maybe I’m a frustrated journalist–I love the buzz of news and reporting and commenting.

The issue I drew about was the McChrystal firing. The drawing (link in the magazine here) I share with you below. The idea of a general’s medals being for things other than bravery, etc, is not a new one for me. I have tried it before in cartoons that did not sell. Medals for not saying the word peace, medals for driving a hybrid….but this time, I used the format again and it was the magic formula. Cartoonists often do this– rework settings, formats, words with new ideas.

Not that this came easily. In my head and on the many pages of paper on my desk, I tried numerous different approaches to the McChrystal affair before I drew this one. There are countless ways to get at a subject, the key is to find a way to poke fun in a manner that will allow the cartoon to last beyond the immediate circumstances.

(copyright The New Yorker Magazine and Liza Donnelly)