A number of editorial cartoonists could not contain their admiration for the
forty-third president. “Isn’t Bush doing a great job?” asks a woman as she watches
the news. “Shut up, Tipper,” Al Gore bristles, in a wry cartoon by Mike Peters. In
a cluster of cartoons, George and Barbara Bush express unabashed pride in the
accomplishments of their younger son. “My . . . how you’ve grown since we last
saw you, son!” they exclaim, as they look up at a massive pair of cowboy boots. In
general, the period immediately following 9/11 presented a bonanza of patriotic iconography.
Robert Ariail’s no-nonsense rendering of a muscular Uncle Sam rolling up
his sleeves as if preparing for battle is probably as representative of the reanimated
nationalism on display in these pages as any of Brooks’s selections