I used to know your daddy

So you might have noticed a bit of a flap last week about the NYT's swapping out a 1A hed between editions (which the Times quickly detailed a deputy ME to explain). To the party press, this was proof of the Apocalypse:

Blowback against the New York Times over a headline about President Trump's response to recent mass shootings is a frightening precedent, according to Mollie Hemingway.

The fact several media and political figures were able to convince the paper to change its headline after the first edition exposes the collective outrage as a "mob," Hemingway claimed Tuesday on "Special Report."

"Clearly, the first headline was more factual and less opinion-y than the second headline -- which was not a very well constructed headline," the Federalist senior editor said.

Should you find yourself giving a flip what Mollie Hemingway thinks (hey, it's a free country), you're still entitled to wonder: Have none of the rubes at Fox News ever worked on a multi-edition fishwrap? Where, at least when newspapers were newspapers and dinosaurs stalked the Earth's cooling crust, things changed between editions all the freaking time? But since the America First press was leading the charge in 2019, let's flash back to an earlier case of editioning with the polarities somewhat flipped.

Confession time: I've written earlier, at least in the context of the Chicago papers, that by the time the presses rolled on Dec. 7, 1941, for Monday's editions, newspapers were of one mind. I stand corrected. As Life magazine reported (Dec. 22, 1941), the New York Daily News -- run by Joseph Medill Patterson, northeastern terminus of the isolationist "McCormick-Patterson axis" -- got the war onto the front page, but the edit page still sported a cartoon worked up in advance by C.D. Batchelor.

If you haven't heard of Batchelor by name, you know his work -- probably the death's-head seductress War tempting "Any European Youth" in 1936 to come upstairs with the line "I used to know your daddy." She was back for Monday, Dec. 8, smoking "soldier cigarets." (It's way small to read in the image above, but Life notes that they were labeled "Youth, Anzac, Asiatic, American.") This, evidently, would not do, though I'm sure The Federalist would be happy to note that it had factuality going for it, so Batchelor got cranking and had "Victory -- and only Victory" ready to go for the second edition. When duty calls, and all that.

Does that make the Times a good guy, a bad guy, or just another paper that runs into occasional unpleasant consequences from getting rid of the copydesk? Up to you (though if you canceled your subscription, you surely helped Fox more than you hurt the Times). But we can at least note that attitudes have changed fast in the great New York papers before, and if the vermin press didn't complain then, they don't have a lot of leeway now.

Today in existential threats

What's the existential threat weighing on the minds of Col. McCormick and his enterprising stable of cartoonists on June 30, 1941? 

The hanky that "enterprising widow" Europe is waving is labeled "Union Now" -- the roughly two-year-old "federal union" movement for a transatlantic state (or, as the Tribune put it a day earlier, "the scheme for an immediate union of the United States and the six still-free democracies of the British commonwealth of nations"). This, as you can imagine, was not the Trib's idea of preserving the exceptional American way of life.  I mean, just look at Europe's little friends there.

A terrible beauty is born

Let the record show that on this date, 5th inst., in the year of our Lord the two thousand and eighteenth, foxnews.com has published its first house-brand editorial cartoon to illustrate a frontpage story. (At least, the first that I recall seeing, and I try to keep up with these things.)

The story itself is hardly a surprise:

Once upon a time, former intel chiefs employed a restrained and nonpartisan tone in the public eye. Now, they're diving right into the mud of today's rancorous political fights.

And the current battle between law enforcement circles and congressional Republicans over the controversial memo on alleged surveillance abuse has pulled Obama-era spy guys even deeper into the brawl.

... but the cartoon is an unusual treat. No details in the story or on the website beyond the "Branco" signature, which along with the tone and style suggests the cartoonist A.F. Branco.

The 1A cartoon itself, of course, isn't new; it's hard to miss if you keep up with isolationism, exceptionalism and the old-school Tribune. Here, indeed, is the Trib's Carey Orr from this date 70 years ago, longing for some "party discipline":

As a field of study, you have to admit it beats the heck out of Photoshop.

The end of irony

Yes, it's a "most people" lede, but bear with our Tribune columnist here -- he has a Point!

The two questions most people ask about a new movie are: Do I really want to see it? And, is it worth the price?

“Darkest Hour,” the film starring Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill, is definitely worth seeing now, not later. It is worth the price.

And it is required.

Because in a West under siege, in a West — particularly the European West — that often seems lost and almost eager to capitulate to a diminished future, “Darkest Hour” isn’t merely a good film.

I didn't know you spelled "sharia" with a D, but nevertheless:

It is a necessary film.

It reminds us that heroes don’t require magic swords, superpowers, spandex costumes or comic-book inspiration.

Heroes can be quite human, even dumpy and old and fat, egotistic and self-indulgent.

... What is required is an iron will, an epic stubbornness, a refusal to listen to reasonable voices that would reasonably help bend the knee. 

And we all know where that comes from, right? 

In “Darkest Hour,” and in the other films about Churchill that I’ve seen, there is a hint about where the iron will comes from: the expectations of the British aristocracy on the young; the severe schools, the punishments, the obligations placed on the ruling class to serve the empire.

In America, we infantilize our young, and some remain boys and girls until middle age, and we make heroes of athletes and actors and entertainers. But not in the England of that time.

For the aristocracy, the will was also molded by the kind of literature that helped shape the empire, which, along with the British Navy and its guns, reinforced Great Britain’s place, ruling the seas.
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HAHAHAHAHA watermelon!

How does Gategate look in the cold light of day there, Boston Herald?

And what's the latest on the apologia front?

Boston Herald cartoonist Jerry Holbert took to the airwaves this morning to apologize for a political cartoon that set off a social media firestorm after appearing on the paper's editorial page.

“I want to apologize to anyone I offended who was hurt by the cartoon,” Holbert said this morning on Boston Herald Radio. “It was certainly, absolutely, not my intention.”

... Holbert claimed he came up with the idea to use watermelon flavor after finding “kids Colgate watermelon flavor” toothpaste in his bathroom at home.

“I was completely naive or innocent to any racial connotations,” Holbert said. “I wasn’t thinking along those lines at all.”

Got it. I mean, it's not like the Kenyan's brushing his teeth with a chicken bone or anything.
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Return of the huskies

In today's "Barney and Clyde," the streetwise Clyde is enlightening his wealthy friend Barney about the many ways to describe the way tourists walk: "Like the Eskimos and 'snow,' we have 50 words for 'slow.'"

Well, sure, it's not especially original, but it's not even especially original to "B&C." Here's a relevant chunk of the strip from Feb. 5, 2012, with Barney bringing up the Eskimos:

 Wonder when it will show up next?

Today in 1A art

Have I told you guys that I miss the days of the 1A editorial cartoon? Fortunately, thanks to Mr. Murdoch and the gang, I never have to miss them for long. The twinkle on the front tooth is an especially good touch.

No doubt you've heard quite enough about this already, though.

Get it?

In case your newspaper hasn't hired an interpreter for the metaphor-impaired out there, imagine the conversation downtown: Hey, could you do, like, a Tundra? And it'd be, like, on the tip? Of an iceberg!

OK, as metaphors go, it's a little on the mixed side. We don't have an actual iceberg of Toyotas, let alone Toyota troubles; we have an iceberg of ice, with a Tundra on top. Not an unusual pose for your Final Four ad campaign, but just fractionally out of tune (something can be "on the tip" of your tongue, but it's "the tip of the iceberg"). And, of course, subtle as the day is long. Get it? Tip of the iceberg, Ma!

Lest you be tempted to write this one off to Those Wacky Kids and their Photoshops, bear in mind that America's Newspapers have a long tradition of throwing visual elbows on the front page when there's a point at stake. Here's Carey Orr* of the Chicago Tribune, with a mild form of the FDR- bashing that decorated the Trib's pages right up until the presses rolled for the bulldog edition of December 8.* If it reminds you of any number of recurring themes at the Fair-n-Balanced Network, like the "apology tour" and the "who's your buddy?" riff, there's probably a reason for that.

* Orr, who has been featured in these pages a couple times before, was among several Pulitzer-winners in the Trib stable. He's not the only one who drew FDR standing, or walking, or doing backflips, but based on the sample that this project drew on (November 1941 through mid-January 1942), he was the most likely to.
** I was trying to find a really good one from the Trib's near-indictment in 1942, but some boxes in the basement have yet to yield all their secrets, and it's probably in one of them.