Worst Bush ever

[avram]

I’m pretty damn sure that Ted Rall’s depiction of George W. Bush is the single most inept job of caricature in the history of professional cartooning. Seriously, does that look anything like Dubya? Is Rall’s even trying? It looks like Bush is a werewolf or something. And the medal-bedecked uniform is a mistake. Assuming Rall’s putting any thought into it at all, he’s probably trying to portray Bush as either a banana-republic-style military dictator, or just poking fun at the way Bush associates himself with the military, but what he winds up doing is reinforcing that association, which is a tactical mistake.

Gary Trudeau made a much better choice with his depiction. By choosing a Roman centurion’s helmet Trudeau breaks associations with the modern military. The flag he shows Bush using as a cape also works along these lines — it's a misuse of the flag, an abuse of a patriotic symbol rather than real patriotism.