John Kerry in 1971 Doonesbury Strip: "You're Really Clicking Tonight, You Gorgeous Preppie."

1971 | Doonesbury

[Alex P. Keaton]

This is hilarious -- an actual 1971 cartoon of the junior Senator from Massachusetts!

[anniegetyourgun]

Not much has changed....he's still a legend in his own mind.

[Viva Le Dissention]

There are people out there that feel like Garry Trudeau is some die hard lefty, but I think he's an equal opportunity basher. That guy just cracks me up, and he's just about the only strip that I read on a daily basis. I just love that Mr. Butts.

[gridlock]

Brings you back to the days that Doonsberry was actually funny.

[jwfiv]

Wow, and far-out...thanks for posting this, first time Doonesbury's made me smile since...well, it's maybe the first time EVER.

BTW, for the daily records, JFKerry-Heinz is a simp, a fraud, a loser.

[AmericanVictory]

Exactamente! Before satire became screed.

[Phantom Lord]

Garry is a die hard lefty. No doubt about it.

[Congressman Billybob]

FReepers may be wondering why John Kerry made the cut to be skewered in Doonesbury, after all, he was then rather obscure (a status he still deserves). The reason is that Gary Trudeau started Doonesbury while he was at Yale, and most of the characters were drawn from real people, or composites of them.

Trudeau was Yale, '65, as I recall. I don't remember him, but I remember his work. He had to have known John Kerry, Yale '64. And my classmate, Kerry, was an egotistical horse's patoot back then, as he is now. I ran into him through the Yale Political Union, of which I was an officer. I can't recall whether Kerry was a member of the Liberals (basically liberal Democrats) or the Party of the Left (socialists and communists). Might be interesting to find out which one Kerry was in.

(I was a member of the Conservative Party, though I had some affinity for the Party of the Right. The latter was an odd conflation of anarchists and monarchists. They believed "the only proper funtion of governments is to print stamps and maintain the standing army.")

Congressman Billybob

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[Congressman Billybob]

P.S. "B.D." in Doonesbury was patterned on Brian Downing, captain of our pathetic football team, by the way.

Billybob

[doug from upland]

Thanks for the insight, CB.

[x]

Kerry has always been an opportunist and a joke. He spent much of the 1970s moving his family around Eastern Massachusetts looking for a congressional seat that he could win.

It's possible to respect someone who stays where he or she is and tries to achieve something, or someone who takes on a difficult battle and stays with it, win or lose, but Kerry's opportunist hustling and relentless self-promotion have always been hard to take.

It's not surprising that someone like Kerry, a child of divorce, a poor relation in a rich family, a hanger-on at elite prep-schools and universities, developed delusions of grandeur. What is surprising is that he found other people to believe them.

[EYMullins]

BD was actually Brian Dowling, leader of the undefeated 1968 Yale football team, together with Calvin Hill. They were nationally ranked, along with Harvard, to whom they "lost" the infamous 29-29 tie game at the end of their senior seaon. That would make Trudeau class of 69 or somewhere thereabout. There are not many Billybobs who are sons of Eli.

[Rummyfan]

Yes back in the days when Doonesbury was actually funny!

Hope the voters have the smarts to see through empty-suit Kerry.......

Imus gave him over twenty minutes on his show yesterday and I thought he was pretty soft on him.....

[Bommer]

This is hilarious --

Doonesbury hilarious? Since when?

[LRoggy]

I'm also a conservative Doonesbury fan, have most of the books. His cutting down to size of Jerry Brown as governor of California was priceless! Who can forget his great putdown of the then head of the UAW, Leonard Woodcock, when Woodcock was named to succeed Uncle Duke as ambassador to China?

"What could have possessed Carter to replace with me with Woodcock?", Duke says to his then translator, Honey. She replies, "maybe it is because Mr. Woodcock shows great plight to the working class?" To which Duke replies, "all labor leaders show great plight to the working class, Honey, that's how they avoid belonging to it!

[pawdoggie]

Good catch! There is little doubt in my mind that Kerry (like Bill Clinton) had John Kennedy as a hero and role model, and has dreamed of the Presidency since the JFK presidency. The fact that he has the same "JFK" initials as the late President must have reinforced his belief in his "destiny". I also don't doubt that his joining the Navy (Jack Kennedy's branch of service), and his choice of assignment to "swift" boats (a down-sized version of the WWII PT Boat [e.g. PT109]) was part of a deliberate calculation to enhance his "political viability", to coin a phrase. In fact, even his turning on former ship mates by going public with his "opposition" to the Vietnam war was doubtless based on an assessment of voter attitudes in the Socialist Republic of Taxachussetts.

[BillyBoy]

He're one in case Alpha Male decides to run again:

[Republic of Texas]

Add in pave the roads (interstate), and that sounds like a plan to me.

[js1138]

Trudeau is not an equal opportunity basher. His satire of the left is skillfully designed not to hurt the democrat party. He also drops strips and goes "on vacation" when events don't go as he expected.

For example, he promised full coverage of the OJ trial and bailed out when it didn't go the right way. He did Altzheimer's jokes about Reagan. He did a few token Clinton bimbo jokes, but never followed through.

Nope, he's a highly paid operative of the DNC.

[Bommer]

Which once again begs the question; when was Doonesbury ever funny?