Sunday morning toons: My Bibi, he wrote me a letter

(Acknowledgement to The Box Tops.)

The letter – and you know which one I mean – is almost self-parodying, so I've had reason to be a little more selective about toons on that topic. Too many easy shots. Many of those easy shots were taken by the very (non-cartoonist) signatories who later felt the bite-marks on their asses: It was a joke. I didn't have time to read it. We figured if McConnell signed it there was no problem. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Self-promoting idiots.

Meanwhile, here's what else mostly didn't make the cut:

I'm giving a miss to the Hillary email thing for now, although I'm not much of a Hillary fan. (She might not be as bad for the Fourth Amendment as Obama, but she could give the Iran War Fanboys their wettest dream.) Matt Davies illustrates why I don't take the email thing seriously: As I've said on many occasions, the Don't Like Hillary Crowd is perfectly prepared to pick up mid-sentence where they left off eight – or twenty-eight – years ago. Yawn. I read Pat Bagley's toon as being about her staff's tradition of lame-ass responses to controversy (in this case, one she should have seen coming years ago).

And yes, the Secret Service has had a dreadful PR week, following a bad PR year. But is it just my imagination, or did stories of dereliction like this only start appearing after they got pulled out the the Treasury Department and rolled into the panicked post-9/11 Shake 'N Bake bag we now call the Department of Homeland Security? Moving on.

And as disgusting as I find the UO OU [thanks, Ryan!] Sig Ep story (Did you know that the fraternity was founded in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1856, four or five years before shots fell on Fort Sumter? Probably a coincidence.), the rest of the news is that they were completely within their First Amendment rights to sing merry songs about banning and lynching "niggers." I cite Nothstine's Law of Free Speech: If defending the First Amendment doesn't hurt at least a little (or in this case, make you throw up a little into the back of your mouth), you're probably not doing it right. After all, it's the ugliest expression that needs protection. Bad luck for them that they got caught on video doing it, but I'm sure they'll survive. Tradition and all. Old times there are not forgotten. And, as the ACLU says. . . .

Today's toons were selected 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, Nick Anderson, Ken Catalino, Jeff Danziger, Ted Rall, Tom Toles, Matt Wuerker, and Monte Wolverton.

p3 Best of Show: Jeff Danziger.

p3 Legion of Merit: Kevin Kallaugher.

p3 Hogan's Heroes Award (watch for it): Jim Morin.

p3 Award for Best Adaptation From Another Medium: Signe Wilkinson.

p3 Certificate of Historicaly Lame Harmonic Toon Convergence: John Deering and Rick McKee.

p3 World Toon Review: Patrick Chappatte (Switzerland), Paresh Nath (India), Ingrid Rice (Canada), and Jean-François Rochez (Belgium).

Ann Telnaes considers the long game behind the SCOTUS health care case.

Mark Fiore looks at the next wave of capitalism: Monetizing the poor.

Tom Tomorrow looks forward to proof that the system works. Probably. Maybe. Perhaps.

Keith Knight looks at the resume of one of Chicago's own. I bet Giuliani's sore he didn't hire this guy away.

Tom the Dancing Bug: Did Hollingsworth Hound go too far? Nope.

Red Meat's Ted Johnson savors the reality of "reality TV."

The Comic Strip Curmudgeon reveals the perfect formula for a pop culture-themed strip.

Comic Strip of the Day reminds us why this strip used to be good.

Betcha don't have a pair of these, earthling! Ren and Stimpy were one of my great guilty pleasures from the early 1990s. For the first six canonical episodes, creator Jon Kricfalusi voiced Ren Höek (a genuine Asthma-Hound Chihauhau) and the ubiquitous Billy West voiced his sidekick Stimpson J. Cat. (West took over the voice of Ren after JK fell out with Nickelodeon). Kricfalusi said Ren's voice was based on a mash-up of Peter Lorre and Kirk Douglas; West said that Stimpy's voice was based on Larry Fine, the only one of the Three Stooges that no one ever imitated. I adored the early episodes for their loving takedowns of television from my childhood: bad serial science fiction, inexplicable nature documentaries, and commercials for toys that were ridiculously pointless. Watch the wonderful Ren and Stimpy episode "Space Madness" 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 Welcomed Back The Departed, Oregon Toon Block:

Ex-Oregonian Jack Ohman celebrates transparency.

Allegedly Ex-Oregonian Jen Sorensen offers advice for the disposessed.

Matt Bors may have figured out how to take the next 20 months – at least! – off. Clever bugger.

Jesse Springer is having trouble buying into that whole rising tide lifts all boats thing.

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