This Week’s Cartoon: “Dictator Do’s and Don’ts”

This strip doesn’t really have much deeper meaning beyond being a vehicle for me to draw Mr. Perkins as Qaddafi. I had started writing this when the Egyptian revolution was taking place, and then updated it for the present. I find it hard to write cartoons about the uprisings in the Middle East, as they aren’t exactly comedic affairs (aside from the mannerisms of certain prideful and eccentric despots).

As for my thoughts on the bombing of Libya: I don’t know. In general, I find the active slaughtering of civilians to be one of the better reasons for military intervention, but the more I read, the more I realize the situation is fraught with complications. My current mantra is “WWNKT?” — What Would Nicholas Kristof Tweet? Kristof is back in the Middle East for, I think, the third time in the past few weeks, which makes me envy his adaptable circadian rhythms (meanwhile, I’m still recovering from the switch back to Daylight Savings Time).

A telling side note: While the NYT has several journalists on the ground over there, with four of them being released recently from a harrowing capture by Qaddafi’s forces, the Huffington Post’s top stories are all AP reports. Yesterday, their top story on the Libyan conflict was datelined Paris. And yet pro-Arianna types call the NYT irrelevant?