Politics

Cartoons about Amy Coney Barrett: How political artists are rendering their judgment


Bennett is drawing through the lens that the Barrett confirmation and the court’s resulting 6-to-3 conservative majority is an apparent fait accompli. And if a shift to the right were to lead to a reversal of the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision, “I fear we’re not all that far removed from the status women enjoyed in Gilead — the nightmarish dystopia that Margaret Atwood imagined in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale,’ ” says the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist, noting that access to legal abortion has been sharply reduced at the state level over the past four decades.

“This depiction of Lady Justice, or should I say, the Lady Justice of a newly established Supreme Court, wearing the uniform of one of Gilead’s handmaids — a uniform that has become a symbol of the diminished rights of women — seemed to make sense to me,” he says.

Bennett’s caption coincides with The Washington Post’s reporting last week that Barrett held the title of “handmaid” in the small, Indiana-based Christian group People of Praise, according to a 2010 directory excerpt obtained by The Post.

Adam Zyglis, the Pulitzer-winning cartoonist for the Buffalo News, is satirizing the proceedings through a similar prism.

“My first reaction to her selection was that her gender would be used to water down or distract from her record that opposed women’s rights and related issues,” Zyglis says. “And sure enough, the GOP has ironically criticized the Democrats for attacking her for being a woman — apparently they forget years of crucifying Hillary [Clinton] at the stake.”

Meanwhile, Jack Ohman, the Pulitzer-winning cartoonist for the Sacramento Bee, engaged in wordplay. “I kept hearing ‘court packing, court packing, court packing,’ all week,” he says. “Then, of course, ‘fracking, fracking, fracking.’ All this headnoise conspired to give me this idea, with the fracking/packing cartoon” of Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) opposing the Affordable Care Act.

And Mike Luckovich, the Pulitzer-winning cartoonist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has cast Barrett in a twist on the George Washington fable. “The whole confirmation process is theater,” says the artist, who says he thinks Barrett will be confirmed, “and we know what she’s going to do once she’s on the bench.”

Here is how some other cartoonists are spoofing the proceedings:

R.J. Matson (CQ Roll Call):

Tom Toles (The Washington Post):

Randall Enos (Cagle Cartoons):



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