Sunday morning toons: Renouncing him thrice before the cock crowed

Well, this week must have been an awkward one for the elder Bush brothers – Jeb "If I Knew Then What I Know Now" Bush had to walk back, one embarrassing step at a time, his support for George W. "This Is The Guy Who Tried To Kill My Dad" Bush's two disastrous wars of opportunity and family honor. Honestly, all that family needs is another son named "Regan." Or, I suppose, "Reagan."

Oh, yeah. And George Stephanopolous donating $75K to a Clinton foundation was both professionally tone-deaf and politically ill-timed, but anyone who's worried about what chump change like that might do to influence elite media coverage of a presidential election hasn't been paying attention since January 21, 2010. They're probably shocked to discover that cheating goes on in professional sports, too.

If you drew B.B. King bringing Lucille up to St. Peter at the Pearly Gates, or you pulled up a too-obvious visual comparison between the Philadelphia Amtrak crash and the thirty-five year refusal of congressional Republicans to fund Amtrak, let alone the rest of our nation's infrastructure (some of which, as Pat Bagley notes below, is pre-Civil War), you probably didn't make the cut today.

Today's toons were selected by the hallowed system of primogeniture from the week's offerings at McClatchy DC, Cartoon Movement, Go Comics, Politico's Cartoon Gallery, Daryl Cagle's Political Cartoons, About.com, and other fine sources of cartoon goodness.

p3 Picks of the week: Mike Luckovich, Jeff Danziger, Rebecca Hendin, Chan Lowe, Joel Pett, Ted Rall, Marshall Ramsey, Rob Rogers, Tom Toles, Signe Wilkinson, Lalo Alcaraz, Nick Anderson, Matt Wuerker, Pat Bagley, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Kevin Kallaugher.

p3 Legion of Merit: Chan Lowe.

p3 Legion of Extraordinary Merit: Jeff Stahler.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence: Robert Ariail and Bob Gorrell.

p3 Special "When Did Syndicated Cartoonists Decide To Go Gross?" Mention: Matt Davies and Matt Davies.

p3 "Gaudeamus Igitur" Chorus to: Drew Sheneman.

p3 World Toon Review: Petar Pismestrovic (Austria), Ingrid Rice (Canada), and Andreas Völlinger & Flavia Scuderi (Germany).

Ann Telnaes actually makes me nostalgic for the good old days when "Bush's Brain" meant Karl Rove.

Mark Fiore pays tribute to The Most Transparent Administration Ever.

Tom Tomorrow presents the cage match between Middle of the Road Man and the Populist Avenger! (By the way, am I the only one who's still looking forward to the epic intellectual-property cage match between This Modern World and Midas?)

Keith Knight finds that rare moment of intersection between Donald Rumsfeld and Martin Luther King. Although Rummy would probably deny that this comparison is accurate, and King was, you know, assassinated forty-seven years ago last month.

Tom the Dancing Bug brings Magritte Comics, and other treats, in the Super-Fun-Pak Comix. (And don't miss the continuing adventures of Aunt-Man!)

Red Meat's Bug-Eyed Earl makes a confession.

The Comic Strip Curmudgeon examines 21 generations of racially pure inbreeding dedicated to enforcing its own version of morality, and it's disturbingly reminiscent of The Venture Bros., or perhaps Super Friends.

Comic Strip of the Day explains something without which the world makes very little sense: Newspaper editors never see the funnies.

Urp! Simon's cat, goes a-courtin', with mixed results, in "Butterflies," directed in 2015 by Simon Tofield. Two questions: (1) Am I the only one who thought of Marcellus Wallace's briefcase? And (2) How did the butterfly get through the window pane?

The p3 Sunday Comics Read-Along: Pearls Before Swine, Doonesbury, Rhymes with Orange, Zits, Adam @ Home, Mutts, Over the Hedge, Get Fuzzy, Prince Valiant, Blondie, Bizarro, Mother Goose & Grimm, Rose is Rose, Luann, Hagar the Horrible, Pickles, Rubes, Grand Avenue, Freshly Squeezed, The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee, and Jumble.

The Big, And Getting Bigger Since We Went All Wall Street, Blew Off The Rules, And Welcomed Back The Departed, Oregon Toon Block:

If Ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman has it right, Obama is getting off easy.

Possibly Ex-Oregonian Jen Sorensen finds the unimaginable: A conservative who believes in evolution!

Matt Bors takes a moment to pay tribute to the man who saves Clarence Thomas from being the stupidest justice on the Supreme Court. (And, for the record, I use the term "stupid" in the sense of "being in a stupor," rather than a reflection upon the measured intelligence of either jurist.) (Although, heaven knows. . . . )

Jesse Springer puts his thumb on something that's grated on me since I moved to Oregon 25 years ago – three months before Measure 5 threw public education funding into the toilet: Oregon's schools used to be the envy of the nation, and now even Mississippi is grateful for us. Couldn't be prouder.

Test your toon captioning superpowers at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.) And you can browse The New Yorker's cartoon gallery here.