Generalissimo el Busho: Essays and Cartoons on the Bush Years

From Publishers Weekly
Even when the country was rallying around President Bush, syndicated cartoonist and columnist Rall remained in a state of outrage—one he effectively maintains throughout this book, a set of essay-like meditations on a Pinochetesque figure he calls "Generalissimo El Busho." Each of 60 or so short salvos is typically accompanied by one to three cartoons (at most four to six panels). Bush's election ("The Seizure of Power") is followed by a post-9/11 cartoon on the president's attitudes toward civil liberties violations titled "Martin Niemoller Now"—referring to the priest who said, in part, "When they came for Jews, I did not speak up, because I wasn't a Jew." A prescient cartoon imagines the prison at Guantánamo as the reality show Gitmo House. A "Canyon of Heroes" cartoon cites a 9/11 victim: "My death helped create the political climate that allowed tax cuts for rich folks during a recession." Love him or hate him, Rall is never less than provocative. The material is current through March 2004, and much of it still stings. A specialist on Central Asia, Rall actually went to Afghanistan and wrote, "We won the war but we lost the peace. Will we do the same thing in Iraq? Count on it." Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


Daily Texan
"Ted Rall is a national hero."


The Comics Journal
"Ted Rall is giving dissent a bad name."


The Nation
"Rall has filed some of the best reporting from Afghanistan by an American journalist."


1996/2000 Republican Presidential Candidate Alan Keyes
"Should (Rall) be pubished, arrested? Shot at dawn? Governmental action may be necessary."


Book Description
Ted Rall is best known for saying today what will become conventional wisdom tomorrow. His GENERALISSIMO EL BUSHO is the ultimate chronicle of the most polarizing presidency in modern American history, a brilliantly tragicomic week-by-week dissection of the Bush Administration's follies and crimes as seen by America's most courageous editorial cartoonist and political writer. Ted Rall, who has traveled and reported from the world's hottest trouble spots, recognizes a dictator when he sees one. And he doesn't scare easily. Having seized power extraconstitutionally, Bush and his cabal of corrupt businessmen made it obvious that they intended to rule with ruthless zeal. Unlike most of his fellow journalists, however, Rall refused to be cowed--even in the wake of 9/11. Others came out of the woodwork during 2003, but Ted Rall's ferocious denunciations of our ersatz president and his assaults on our precious freedoms stood virtually alone during the flag-waving weeks and months following the attacks on New York and Washington. And unlike every other commentator, Rall used two different forms of media--cartoons and essays--to speak brutally honest truth to power even as he fended off death threats. Brave, uncompromising and fiercely devoted to traditional American values of freedom and integrity, Ted Rall's GENERALISSIMO EL BUSHO collects the best of his hilarious cartoons and brutally honest essays during the Bush years.


From the Author
Three million people lost their jobs, tens of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis lost their lives and we got stuck fighting two pointless wars that stregthened the terrorists who hate us. Some people did get something out of George W. Bush's reign of error, however: the super rich, who collected stupendous tax cuts, big corporations, who enjoyed almost total freedom to do whatever they want, and people like me. We political humorists and commentators ended up with the most radical, idiotic and vicious president in history--and he was illegimate to boot! Not to mention: he was busy. Some days, I swear I could have drawn a dozen cartoons and written a dozen more columns. There were so many new initiatives, so many over-the-top schemes, it was nearly impossible to keep up. GENERALISSIMO EL BUSHO is the beneficiary of this embarrassment of inspirational riches. I hope you like it.


About the Author
Ted Rall, a cartoonist and columnist for Universal Press Syndicate, is the author of the books TO AFGHANISTAN AND BACK and WAKE UP, YOU'RE LIBERAL! as well as the ATTITUDE cartooning anthologies. Also the author of the seminal REVENGE OF THE LATCHKEY KIDS, Rall is a Pulitze Price finalist and twice the winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award. A specialist in Central Asian culture and politics, he lives in New York City.


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Even when the country was rallying around President Bush, syndicated cartoonist and columnist Rall remained in a state of outrage-one he effectively maintains throughout this book, a set of essay-like meditations on a Pinochetesque figure he calls "Generalissimo El Busho." Each of 60 or so short salvos is typically accompanied by one to three cartoons (at most four to six panels). Bush's election ("The Seizure of Power") is followed by a post-9/11 cartoon on the president's attitudes toward civil liberties violations titled "Martin Niemoller Now"-referring to the priest who said, in part, "When they came for Jews, I did not speak up, because I wasn't a Jew." A prescient cartoon imagines the prison at Guant namo as the reality show Gitmo House. A "Canyon of Heroes" cartoon cites a 9/11 victim: "My death helped create the political climate that allowed tax cuts for rich folks during a recession." Love him or hate him, Rall is never less than provocative. The material is current through March 2004, and much of it still stings. A specialist on Central Asia, Rall actually went to Afghanistan and wrote, "We won the war but we lost the peace. Will we do the same thing in Iraq? Count on it." Agent, NBM. (Aug.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.


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