Berge's Editorial Cartoons

This week's cartoon is one of those cases where my syndicate editors' requested changes to the original idea in order to conform with their dating system and I'm not completely satisfied with the result. Originally, the gay Republicans were supposed to be ushered into the cage upon their arrival and notice that it looked strangely like the Democrats' "Free Speech Zone." But according to my editors, this is the September 6 cartoon, and the Republican convention is over, so I had to revise the idea accordingly. Surely the characters in the cartoon would have long ago ceased to care that their cage was borrowed from Boston, and putting a "Democrats' Free Speech Zone" label on the cage would have been confusing (Are they in Boston or New York? Are they waiting for the Democrats to let them out?), so that aspect of the cartoon just gets lost. Meanwhile, this cartoon puts me in the awkward position of hoping that Schwarzenegger, Giuliani and McCain give rousing speeches and nobody else says anything that would turn gay Republicans off.

President Lyndon B. Johnson is "a Southerner who sold his birthright for a mess of dark pottage."
--future Senator Zell Miller, DINO-GA, while running for Congress in 1964, on LBJ's signing of the Civil Rights Act that year. He was quoted in the Atlanta Constitution, If James Carville and Paul Begala are to be believed, Miller's explanations of this remark in 1990 paint Miller as a politician who will say anything. Anything:

"One of the most amazing experiences of our political career turned on the issue of openness. Zell Miller, our candidate for governor of Georgia in 1990, had performed stunningly well in the statewide-televised debate against his GOP opponent. There had been one rather tense exchange that Miller knocked out of the park. He was asked about a comment he allegedly made back in 1964 � a racist attack on Lyndon Johnson when LBJ had gone to Georgia to campaign for Miller�s opponent. The reporter questioning Miller said that Miller had slammed Johnson for supporting civil rights, accusing him of 'selling his Southern heritage for a mess of dark pottage.' ...
"So we were thrilled when Miller wheeled on his accuser and said that back in 1964 when the Atlanta Constitution had printed that so-called quote he�d marched down to the paper�s offices and demanded and received a correction. He�d never say a thing like that. A great moment.
"The next day that great moment became one of our greatest nightmares. Al May, the veteran political reporter for the Atlanta Constitution, interviewed Miller as Paul drove them and Shirley Miller to an event in rural Georgia. May made small talk for a little while. Then he sprang the trap. 'Zell,' he said, 'I�ve talked to all the editors who were around back then, checked the morgue and the archives, and you never asked for a retraction and the paper never printed one.'
'I know,' Miller said, biting the words off the words like they were bitter herbs.
'So why�d you say all that in the debate last night?'
Miller leaned in close to May and said, 'Because, Al, I was trying to mislead the people of Georgia.'"
--from Buck Up, Suck Up, and Come Back When You Foul Up, by Begala and Carville

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