As I was searching for more cartoons to share, I found the one above among many illustrations of Obama... and his low poll ratings. But this one particularly struck me as funny because we, of course, learned that there are really three branches of the government in our country's system and not two. Then, as we read on, the two branches that are stated are actually Obama's pen and phone. A pen to sign his orders and a phone to make the calls needed. We also see that next to him is a pile of executive orders.
Ms. Jablonski spoke about executive orders not even a few weeks ago when we learned about them in class. They are basically legally binding orders given by the President which must be obeyed like a law. And with the addition of the pen and the phone, this shows that Obama has the power to execute his orders. As one can see, this cartoon is essentially about Obama's power as POTUS and his neglect of the other two branches (even though Congress has the power to overturn executive orders).
I have always thought that the best way to learn was when one was having fun. This is true as well when learning about politics through political cartoons and laughing along with them. Who really wants to read through blocks of texts when a simple picture would suffice? The saying goes: A picture is worth a thousand words. Please join me, as I embark on this amateur journey to explore politics through cartoons.
The first cartoon I would like to analyze is this one:
The NSA (National Security Agency) , which is represented here as a humongous dog, is an organization that has been getting a lot of bark (pun intended) lately because of personal data gathered from the American people and foreign country leaders. Reports on the NSA reveal that they have kept track on what people have searched online along with listening in on phone calls. In this illustration, Obama is saying: "It's okay, I fenced him in.", meaning that Obama seems to have put restrictions on the NSA. And as you may noticed, the fence is very low. So, according to this cartoon, the constraint on the NSA doesn't seem to matter as it can easily overstep its boundaries and pass its restrictions again. Therefore, one can interpret that whatever Obama has done to ease the American people about the NSA is fruitless and useless.
