Yeah, I know I'm on summer break, but I had to write this one because it got spiked. "Spiked" is cartoonist lexicon for "the editors decided not against publishing the comic."

It's fairly obvious why, and I even tipped my editors off that they might want to have a closer look at this one. Still, I felt the pseudo-expletive was key to the humor. I wanted a single, simple word that -- at the peak of anger -- reveals an argument as more "dislike" than "disagree." "Jerk" "Stupid" "Turd" all didn't seem to have quite the bite as "Ass." And omitting the suffix "hole" I thought was enough to keep it off the FCC list. That and the fact that the Business Journal is not a family newspaper. Business-folks above all others should certainly understand and appreciate the contextual use of the term.

The comic itself is about President Bush's visit last month to Grand Rapids' Calvin College to deliver the commencement address. Calvin College is an excellent private school associated with the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), and to an outsider would seem to be something of the citadel for West Michigan's Christian, Republican, conservative troops. An outsider like, say, Karl Rove, who arranged the whole gig. Everybody knows Mr. Rove does not make a plan without precisely calculating the political results. That's his job. So it's no surprise that tiny Calvin College in the secondary population center of Michigan was picked for one of two commencement speeches President Bush gave this year: Michigan is a battleground state that has tipped Democrat in the past two elections; a little love for the core constituency might help tip things to the right next time round.

So the President showed up, nailed his carefully scripted speech, and left. Big cheers. Smiles and handshakes. Cool robes and square hats. Oh, there were protesters. Some of the Calvin staff even took out an ad in the local newspaper to list their grievances. But at the time, I couldn't get enthused about drawing a comic about it. Maybe I've just grown weary of this "left vs. right" crap that passes for political dialogue these days, but there was truly nothing exceptional about it.

But then the letters to the editor started flying. Wow! Some (few) had decent points, but mostly they just degenerated into a bunch of name calling. "Liberal heathen" this and "Conservative knuckle-dragger" that. Mean, sad, and crude. And crude I can work with! Now back to your summer....