Wow, what a great year to work as a political cartoonist in California, especially if you're also a columnist.
Back in January, a California state senator name Rod Wright was convicted on all eight counts in his trial for voter fraud and perjury. Just a few weeks later, another state senator from California, Ron Calderon, was indicted on two dozen (!) counts of bribery, fraud, money laundering and other charges.
David Horsey
By Jack Coleman | April 9, 2014 | 6:54 PM EDT
By Matt Vespa | July 24, 2012 | 5:28 PM EDT
The Los Angeles Times has published an inane and irresponsible piece of political commentary about the recent mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado. This time it's cartoonist and columnist David Horsey, blaming the NRA for the bloodbath, both in writing and in a cartoon depicting a callous Wayne LaPierre quipping "I hope the guns weren't harmed."
Horsey writes:
Let's also consider the statistics that show deaths caused by guns, including suicides, are more common in regions of the country where gun laws are the most lax. Let's have a reasoned discussion that acknowledges the right to bear arms and also recognizes that every one of our liberties has a limit. Let's try to craft sensible gun regulations that promote public safety in circumstances we can predict, even if they cannot stop the unpredictable, random horror of a gunman who has slipped past the boundaries of civilized life.
Why do conservatives not want to have that discussion now? I'll tell you why: Because they have let the most extreme elements of the gun-rights community dictate gun policy for the entire country and now they are afraid to cross them. For conservatives, this is not the time for a discussion about guns because, no matter how much blood is spilled, even in preventable circumstances, it is a discussion they never plan to have.
I have a news bulletin for Horsey. Suicide isn't illegal. Taking your life with a gun doesn't make suicide any more tragic than by overdosing on pills, hanging yourself, or sticking your head in a gas oven. It's just that suicide-by-gun includes an implement that the left loves to hate.
By Ken Shepherd | April 16, 2009 | 4:40 PM EDT
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which since mid-March has been published solely online, greeted visitors to its Web page today with links to opinion pieces or cartoons critical of the April 15 Tea Parties (see screencap at right).
In the upper right-hand corner, under a picture of Seattleites at a tea party protest, were links to
- a liberal opinion piece by P-I cartoonist David Horsey
- a photo slideshow from Seattle's Tea Party
- an editorial cartoon by Horsey, reflecting similar sentiments to those penned in his opinion piece
No ostensibly objective news stories by P-I staffers covering the protests were teased.
Ironically, yesterday afternoon P-I "Big Blog" editor Monica Guzman gave her readers a look at how a new study shows "Political news browsing is getting more partisan.":
By Ken Shepherd | July 23, 2008 | 1:00 PM EDT
Update below.
Vanity Fair magazine thought it amusing to have artist Tim Bower work up a mock magazine cover that lampoons the now-infamous satirical depiction of Sen. Barack Obama as a Muslim and his wife as a gun-slinging leftist radical (h/t Marc Ambinder). In Bower's cartoon, McCain clutches a walker while his wife waits with vials of prescription medicine. A George W. Bush portrait hangs above the fireplace in which the U.S. Constitution is ablaze. Hmm, sounds really familiar for some reason.
I'm not sure if its because leftists lack originality or Vanity Fair doesn't read West Coast publications, but the parody heavily cribs from Seattle Post-Intelligencer David Horsey's July 15 illustration.
Here are the illustrations side by side:
By Ken Shepherd | July 15, 2008 | 5:18 PM EDT
Liberal political cartoonist David Horsey defended the New Yorker's satire of the Obamas with his July 15 Seattle Post-Intelligencer drawing (shown at right, for a larger size check the P-I Web site here) while raising some left-wing tropes about the presumptive GOP nominee.
"For all the irony-challenged literalists who were upset by the New Yorker's Obama-as-a-Muslim magazine cover, here's one for you," reads the caption to the left of Horsey's cartoon depicting John and Cindy McCain as being lampooned on the cover of National Review.