Dangle to Congress, Confirm Bolton Now!

John Bolton must be confirmed as our next representative to the United Nations. Because he's the best qualified? No. Because he's respected for his diplomatic nature? Not a chance. Because he's intelligent or competent? Nuh-uh. John Bolton must be confirmed because he was made for cartoons!

In all my years, I cannot recall a better mug or a more unintentionally funny personality than this to provide material for cartoonists' ridicule. The face is one that can be drawn recognizably without any use of photographic reference (which saves me time and effort). He has dark, matted hair, flattened out over his dome like a fur pancake, but sagging on one side as if the weight was unevenly distributed. The shape of his hair suggests wig, but it also could be that, in his vanity, he wears a super-fine hair net. His face is puffy and doughy, chin virtually non-existent, neither of which is remarkable, but right in the middle there's that bushy, snow white mustache, standing in jarring contrast to the wig above. It's wiry and unkempt and obliterates Bolton's mouth; one can easily imagine him bellowing at his cohorts during a lunchtime meeting, his mustache dripping with mayonnaise or barbecue sauce and he being completely unaware of it.

Bolton: Nation's Nightmare, Cartoonist's Dream

None of these physical attributes, though hilarious, make him perfect for comics. It's the irascible deranged fury in his eyes that does it. This effect can be captured in comics through a combination of bulging eyes that roll independently of each other in their sockets, and quiver lines, stars, and miniature tornados swirling around the head. There's nothing funnier than a guy in a suit, seething with anger, who, in a furious rage, slips on a banana peel. Imagine him about to bully one of his employees (blaming them for his own incompetence) when he accidentally flushes his necktie down the toilet with his neck still in it! When he extracts his head from the toilet his glasses are on crooked and his wig is soaked and hanging by a single strand. Frustrated, pompous, emasculated, he'd be a perfect foil for Popeye, Buster Keaton, or Cheech and Chong. If not for his wealth and power, he could be a maddeningly funny high school teacher who, imagining himself worthy of a much higher station in life, lords his power over his poor biology students. They get back at him by pulling various humiliating pranks: the whoopee cushion, the bucket of water on top of the door, the burning bag of shit. Finally he goes berserk at an all-school pep assembly when he discovers his trousers are glued to his chair, and violently threatens young Timmy Brown in front of the principal and the whole student body. Everybody gets a laugh when Mr. Bolton is hauled away in a straightjacket!

Please folks, consider the comedic opportunities that this confirmation presents. If you give Bolton the thumbs down he will vanish into obscurity, less than an asterisk in history. But if confirmed, we will have a bozo of enormous potential representing the United States in a place where his pratfalls, missteps, and moronic tirades will entertain people around the world. Let's face it, after the Iraq war, we owe the world some yuks.

And, if that's not enough, do it for the cartoonists.