Sunday morning toons: Talk about a tough room to work

Never been a huge Obama fan, really. He exhausted his "I'm Not McCain and Palin" credits pretty early, and even his loyalists don't mention eleventy-dimensional chess anymore. I think, for me it probably started here.

Still, you've got to feel some sympathy for a guy whose enemies can pivot so effortlessly (and shamelessly) from Obama Should Bring Bergdahl Home! to Obama Should Be Impeached for Bringing Bergdahl Home!

They even interrupted their Benghazi!-athon for this. Perhaps they just have issues with proper nouns beginning with B. Or perhaps they're just so self-convinced of his illegitimacy (political and otherwise) that they're simply going to automatically gainsay whatever comes out of his mouth. Since there's probably nothing he can do to put an end to this, maybe he should just start screwing with their heads. Issue a Presidential Order, followed up by a media blitz, affirming that Congressional Republicans and their Tea Party base are definitely not assholes at all. They'd loudly disagree with this, out of sheer reflex, so quickly you wouldn't even need an egg timer to clock it. And this time, of course, they'd actually be in the right. Win-win.

Today's toons were cheerfully selected out of the work by the very same artists I absolutely hated with the heat of a thousand suns about a week ago, 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 toony goodness.

p3 Picks of the week: Mike Luckovich, Dan Wasserman, Signe Wilkinson, Lalo Alcaraz, Clay Bennett (see Comic Strip of the Day, below!), Stuart Carlson, Kevin Kallaugher, Gary Markstein, Matt Wuerker, Pat Bagley, R. J. Matson, Dave Granlund, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Joel Pett.

p3 Legion of Merit: Darrin Bell.

p3 Certificate of Excellence in Cynicism: Dave Fitzgerald.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation from Another Medium: Ken Catalino.

p3 Certificate of Harmonic Toon Convergence: Jeff Danziger and Mike Keefe.

p3 World Toon Review: Chip Snaddon (South Africa), Brian Gable (Canada), Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), and Guffo (Mexico).

Ann Telnaes offers a point of clarification.

Mark Fiore looks at the wind-down of America's longest war.

Taiwan's Next Media Animation celebrates one plucky little country who's bucking the world-wide trend of countries being less interested in paying for the chance to host expensive one-time international sporting events.

MAD Magazine founding editor Harvey Kurtzman tells the secret origin of MAD's asymmetrical yet unworried mascot Alfred E. Newman. Additional notes: Although Superman had already appeared, sort of, in MAD, Newman soon got his cameo in the pages of Superman comics (#126 Jan 1959), in a story line so embarrassing – yet typical of its time – that even my young self knew that the Silver Age of Superman had just about had it. And although MAD had to litigate its way to the highest court in the land to establish its rights to ownership of Newman, it's this later case that remains MAD's most important appearance before that other Usual Gang of Idiots, the U.S. Supreme Court.

In a truly delightful story that has swept through the toonophile world this week like wildfire, Pearls Before Swine artist Stephan Patsis actually met Bigfoot.

Tom Tomorrow looks at some depressingly slim odds.

Keith Knight has the Bong moment (and struggles to keep faith with the lesson he learns!)

Tom the Dancing Bug wonders if living in the best of all possible worlds might be overrated.

Red Meat's Ted Johnson demonstrates the importance of patience in parenting.

The Comic Strip Curmudgeon reacts with astonishment when Hi and Lois does something it's never before been able to do. And you won't believe what it is!

Comic Strip of the Day looks at the lynch-mob-proportioned reception that was waiting for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl when he got back home, and draws support from an unlikely source.

Why'd you have to turn off all that sunshine? "Klondike Casanova," directed by Izzy Sparber in 1946, features uncredited work by Harry Welch (Popeye), Mae Questel (The Slender One) and Jackson Beck (Dangerous Dan McBluto), plus musical direction by Winston Sharples – one of his better efforts. The Gold Rush setting makes "I Don't Want to Walk Without You" a bit of an anachronism: it was published in 1941 as a song of wartime longing – not really something that you can picture Olive doing a strip-tease to, assuming you can picture that to begin with. And as for the bears' odd little musical plug for McBluto's furs, see here.

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 Started Bending the Rules, Oregon Toon Block:

Ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman unveils his plan for cleaner air.

Possibly Ex-Oregonian Jen Sorensen spies a nasty little irony: What if knowledge really is power?

Matt Bors offers tips for aspiring political cartoonists.

Jesse Springer notes that the holiday arrived this year a couple of weeks earlier than usual.

Test your toon captioning mojo at The New Yorker's weekly caption-the-cartoon contest. (Rules here.) And the gallery of the latest New Yorker cartoons is here.