F2B Interviews - Tom Tomorrow

While doing research for this interview I re-read your three books. In some of your earlier work you talked a great deal about the abuse of power by both the Reagan and Bush administrations. Here we are in the late 90s and there seems to be a rather clear picture forming of the abuse of power within the current administration. From fund raising to electronics for weapons to China, not to mention the obvious lies in the so called "sex scandal". But you have not been as outspoken about pointing out the hypocrisy of this administration as you have with the Republican administration. Why the double standard? Do you sleep better at night knowing that you are being lied to by a Democrat rather than a Republican?

The question is based on a flawed premise. The Reagan/Bush stuff may stand out in your mind because the stakes were so much higher -- Ollie North's efforts to dismantle the constitution; hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians slaughtered during the Gulf War. But no one has been more consistently critical of Clinton from the very start -- for his obvious indebtedness to corporate backers, for his weaseling and waffling on everything from gays in the military to Lani Guinier to NAFTA to welfare reform. In fact I took a lot of grief for being "prematurely Anti-Clinton," to borrow a phrase from Norman Solomon. And if you've read the books you've presumably also read the introductions -- in the intro to "Wrath" I discuss this at more length: "Yes, I target republicans more frequently than Democrats -- how can any honest satirist not focus on a party that so shamelessly champions polluted air, dirty water and poisoned meat on behalf of its corporate benefactors -- but this does *not* mean I am blindly in favor of any idiotic corporate sellout the *Democrats* propose."

You do go after Clinton as well, but it appears to me that it is a painful endeavor for you. I don't know if you have ever noticed this, but I could not find one comic strip where you pointed out the hypocrisy of Democrats without bashing Republicans in the same strip. Do you feel a certain guilt about dedicating all four panels to the hypocrisy of the Democrats?

Well, I don't know what to say if the work and the essays don't speak for themselves. I suppose you have to keep in mind that for many years I have been talking to an audience which was largely supportive of Clinton, and had to find ways to convey my own disgust for the man in a way that will actually reach them.. And you have to factor in the lack of blatantly up-front corporate sellouts such as handing over national parks to strip miners. We flirted with another Gulf War, but that flirtation came and went before I had much of a chance to do anything on it. Given that I have represented Clinton as a worm, a waffle-head (pre-Doonesbury), referred to him as a "spineless piece of human garbage," and so on, I don't know how to respond without sounding defensive, which I am not -- I have gotten too much "why don't you leave Clinton alone" mail to believe that my point has not been made.

It's also probably easier to drip venom when one is dealing with people who are actively working to restrict abortion and gay rights, and so on. It seems to me that I have commented on Clinton's moderate-Republicanism many times, but your mileage may vary.

"When my "orgy" cartoon ran, one woman wrote a paper to say that if this is what's going on in the modern world, it's clear Satan is having a field day"

You once said that the most heat you ever took was for a cartoon where you asked "Could it possibly, maybe, just conceivably be that [accused African-American cop-killer and liberal cause mascot] Mumia Abu-Jamal is actually guilty?" What does that tell you about the so called open mind of the liberals? Do you think the farther to the left or the right you go ideologically, the more closed minded people become to ideas outside their own?

Actually I took more heat than that recently for a cartoon about the sex scandals which featured these old 18th century engravings of an orgy scene. Conservative Christians all over, particularly in Oklahoma, just went wacko. But yes, I took a lot of grief on that Mumia thing, and I think it suggests that people on the left don't like to have their preconceptions challenged any more than anyone else, which is unfortunate. The world is often an ambiguous place; it is not impossible that Mumia was railroaded *and* that he is guilty. So I say, give the guy a new trial, but don't turn him into a saint on the basis of his politics alone.

A slight digression: I got an email yesterday from somebody calling me a "worthless, nigger-loving faggot" and saying that I'd better not come to his part of the country (which of course was not specified). And here's the thing: I can't think of a left-liberal equivalent of calling someone a "nigger loving faggot." It just doesn't exist. Lefties may be dogmatic, annoying and strident, God bless 'em, but they don't go around calling people "nigger lovers." And frankly, I'll take the politically correct over the racist meatheads any day.

We've just got to get our priorities in order. When my "orgy" cartoon ran, one woman wrote a paper to say that if this is what's going on in the modern world, it's clear Satan is having a field day. And I'm thinking: this is a country in which three white guys chain a black man to their truck and drag him to his death -- and then the Klan wants to hold a rally in their town. This is a country in which teenage misfits routinely gun down their high school classmates. This is a country in which an off duty cop shoots a homeless guy for trying to squeegee his windows. And Satan is having a field day because of a cartoon with some naked people?

"I got an email yesterday from somebody calling me a "worthless, nigger-loving faggot" and saying that I'd better not come to his part of the country...which of course was not specified"

In reference to the name calling, I don't know if that is totally true. If I had a penny for every time I heard a liberal refer to a conservative as a "Nazi", I would have enough money to buy your book for every "Dittohead". I would assume it would be a little unnerving being lumped in with the people who killed six million Jews.

I'd agree with you up to a point; in fact, I did a cartoon on my annoyance at Nazi analogies. Of course, in fairness, the Nazi analogy is overused by the right and the left (smoking nazi, feminazi, etc. etc.) as a poorly-thought out way to indicate that Group X wants to have more control over your life than you want them to have. "Nigger loving faggot" is simply hateful spewed bile, and I still think that *that* is primarily a disease of the right. Though there are always exceptions, particularly in times of overt conflict; one could probably dig up plenty of examples of overheated rhetoric on the part of the Weather Underground or the Black Panthers which would quickly disprove my thesis. But even there, I don't think you can compare "capitalist pig" with "nigger lover."

Which is not to argue that the left should always try to compromise, to reach out, to try to find consensus. Christopher Hitchens points out that it's ludicrous for people to decry the politics of division -- politics *are* division-- and notes, "You have to keep the powder of your contempt dry."

In reference to criticism, how do you react to it? Is it something you take to bed at the end of the day or just dismiss as being part of the job?

It is part of the job. I don't mean to suggest that I am unaffected by it, but it is something you have to learn to live with if you are going to spend your time expressing what are apparently controversial opinions in public.

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