The Cartoonists for Both Chicago Dailies Now See Politics From Right of Center

So the two Chicago dailies have one more thing in common, in addition to being in bankruptcy and cutting staffs and news holes.

Both papers now have right-of-center political cartoonists. Each paper employs only one staff cartoonist, so that's a mighty megaphone.

With Tuesday's hiring of Scott Stantis as staff cartoonist to replace Jeff MacNelly, who died nine years ago, the Chicago Tribune has given the platform and a seat on its editorial board to a man who, according to the Tribune's media writer, Phil Rosenthal, is a "self-described libertarian conservative." Rosenthal reports that Stantis considered running as a Republican for the Alabama state Senate.

Currently with the Birmingham News, a once-a-week contributor to USA Today, and syndicated to some 400 newspapers, Stantis is also creator of the "Prickly City" comic strip which, interestingly, the Tribune dropped a couple of years ago.

A sampling of Stantis' work is on Rosenthal's blog. And another cartoon on Chris Kennedy's announcement that he's going to skip the race for the Obama's senate seat.

The Tribune's editor told Rosenthal that Stantis' cartoons will, at times, be "used on Page one."

The Chicago Sun-Times has long had a no-holds-barred conservative in Pulitzer Prize (1989) winner Jack Higgins. His recent cartoon on Bill Clinton's trip to North Korea to bring back the two, young, imprisoned American journalists shows a jovial Big Bill walking and chatting with the smiling, diminutive North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-il Bill asks him:

"Why me? Why here? I dunno. Maybe it's just because I'm so good at picking up chicks."

Another shows the crash of one of the the teleprompter-dependent Obama's teleprompters: "The teleprompter has left a suicide note."