Here it is, fresh from today's installment of Crossfire…

BEGALA: General Boykin said — and I'm quoting him here about our president — "Why is this man in the White House? The majority of Americans did not vote for him." He's right about that. "Why is he there? And I tell you this morning, he's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this." Now, in case General Boykin is watching, and for our folks at home, let me show a couple of images here. First, this is God. God is depicted, actually, by Michelangelo in his masterpiece in ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. On the right side of your screen is William Rehnquist. He's the chief justice of the Supreme Court. He's the one who put George Bush in the White House, isn't he, Reverend Falwell? Not God.

FALWELL: Well, if — if you don't take the Bible seriously, what you and Hussein just said would be true. But the vast majority of believers worldwide, Christian, followers of Christ, believe that God rules in the affairs of men. And history would support that.

BEGALA: So God put President Clinton in office?

FALWELL: You worked for a long time for Bill Clinton. You worked for a long time for Bill Clinton.

BEGALA: So God put him there?

FALWELL: I think that we needed Bill Clinton, because we turned our backs on the lord and we needed a bad president to get our attention again to pray for a good president. That's what I believe.

If you want to read the whole transcript, you can find it here. But just that much I think constitutes the stupidest thing Jerry Falwell has ever said on TV. It's certainly in the Top Ten.

Penn Jillette explains about misdirection and how it may or may not apply to politics.

I just watched today's edition of Crossfire and heard Jerry Falwell say what may be the single stupidest thing he has ever said…and that's quite an achievement. As soon as CNN posts the transcript on its website, I'll quote it here.

Kevin Boury writes to ask…

There's buzz on the TVBarn boards today about Bloom County returning in some form as a Sunday only strip. But I won't believe it until I see it in your blog! Hope you have time to investigate…

It's true, it's true. Here's an announcement over at the website of Berkeley Breathed. And while we're at it, here's an interview with the guy.

Here's a short piece on Spider-Man with a brief interview with John Romita Sr. Unfortunately, right off the bat, it repeats the following "fact"…

The editors of Marvel Comics thought so little of writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko's creation in 1962, that they put the character's debut in the 15th issue "Amazing Fantasy," a comic set to be canceled.

First off, the "editors" of Marvel Comics at the time were one guy — Stan Lee, who most definitely believed Spider-Man could be a hit. The detractor was publisher Martin Goodman, who simply didn't think anyone would buy a comic book about spiders.

Actually, the way the legend is usually told is that Lee and Ditko knew Amazing Fantasy #15 would be the final issue so they figured they had nothing to lose by doing such a dangerously different character in it as a one-shot. But that account apparently isn't true, either. When they did the story in #15, they thought it was the first of many so they went ahead and did another Spider-Man story for Amazing Fantasy #16 and at least started on one for #17.

It was around then that Goodman received some uncommonly low sales figures on issues of Amazing Fantasy prior to the introduction of Spider-Man, back when it was called Amazing Adult Fantasy. He decided the book was such a loser that distributors wouldn't even bother to get later issues onto all the newsstands. Moreover, contracts then limited the number of comics he could publish so he had to cancel one to start another. He was not yet convinced that his new super-hero books were his best commercial prospect and still believed in his western titles. A year or two earlier, he'd cancelled Two-Gun Kid, then decided it was a mistake to have done so. Since then, he'd been looking for a slot on the schedule so he could resurrect it, especially since he had the artwork for an entire issue on the shelf, paid-for but unpublished. Add to that the fact that Goodman did not think the idea of a spider-themed hero was commercial and you have the makings of a boneheaded (but not fatal) error. He cancelled Spider-Man's comic after one issue to make room for the revival of Two-Gun Kid.

Fortunately for comic book history, he soon saw his mistake. Sales went up on that last issue of Amazing Fantasy, fan mail (then, a rarity) arrived, the other super-hero books were doing better and better, and Stan Lee was telling him the new hero deserved another shot. Goodman finally bowed to the inevitable and cancelled a romance comic to clear a spot for a full book of The Amazing Spider-Man. The leftover material, prepared for Amazing Fantasy #15 and #16 was incorporated into the first two issues of the new book.

That's actually how it happened. Don't believe the other version. (It also apparently isn't true that Jack Kirby was replaced as artist on Spider-Man by Ditko because Stan thought Kirby's version was too muscular. But I'll get into that some other time…)

Seymour Hersh reports on what went wrong with the intelligence that the Bush administration received or acted upon with regard to Iraq.

Avedon Carol, who is an expert commentator on politics and slinky underwear, posts the following in response to an earlier post of mine…

What Al Gore said was that he'd read in a newspaper article that Eric Segal had based the lead characters in Love Story on Tipper and Al. That is, in fact, what the newspaper article said. However, Segal said that the article was only partly correct, and that the character Oliver in LS was based on Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones, his pals from college. But journalists and talk show hosts made fun of him for "pretending" Oliver was based on him when, in fact, Oliver was based on him.

Yeah, I knew that but apparently didn't make that clear. Gore said nothing that was inaccurate but somehow, his foes managed to spread all sorts of misquotes, including the spurious claim that Segal had denounced Gore. No matter how many times and ways that one was debunked, the Sean Hannitys of the world kept insisting it was so. I find it amazing that Gore could get characterized by something that was so obviously a bum rap — and even if true, pretty trivial. But it's okay if the President of the United States says eighteen untrue words in the State of the Union address that help to lead us towards war.

One thing I find interesting is that in politics lately, there seems to be no worse charge you can make against an opponent than that he or she is a liar. Being utterly incompetent or outright crooked do not seem to be anywhere near as bad as being caught uttering some statement, however inconsequential, that can perhaps be disproven. A lot of the statements that G.W. Bush and his crew made in support of the Iraq invasion are now being denounced as lies when I suspect the more correct charge would be that someone simply looked at or ignored the evidence and was simply wrong, often dead wrong. That is apparently now insufficient reason to kick someone out of public office. We now have to sell the notion that they knew when they said it that it was wrong and consciously decided to fib.

In any case, I thought Gore was wronged in things like that and the "Love Canal" misquote. You almost expect that of the folks running against him (though you shouldn't) but you don't expect the press corps to go along with the misrepresentation. I'd like to think no one — Democrat or Republican — will get away with that kind of thing again. But they probably will.

Most TV shows and movies that feature real human beings on-camera are written by members of the Writers Guild of America. Up until recently however, writers of animated cartoons were not represented by the WGA but by either (a) The Motion Picture Screen Cartoonists Union, (b) a smaller union that was affiliated with scenic painters or (c) no one. There were years there when being represented by no one was pretty much the same thing as being represented by either of the unions except that you didn't have to pay dues and there was a slight chance you might qualify for a Health Plan. The fellow who ran the M.P.S.C. (local 839 of I.A.T.S.E.) not only did not want to do anything for the writers, he sometimes expressed the opinion that we were overpaid and could stand to lose a few benefits.

Naturally, there was a certain antagonism between the writers and their union. In the late-seventies, there was a concerted legal attempt at what is called "craft severance." This basically means that a unit of workers carves itself out of one union and is then free to affiliate with another. Though more than 95% of all cartoon writers supported the move, it did not happen. The union wanted to keep us (we paid the highest dues rates and are the first ones who can halt production in the event of a strike) and the animation studios — for obvious reasons — wanted to keep us in the union that would never ask for more money on our behalf. Our employers and our union joined forces against us and we spent a few weeks in an airless hearing room at the National Labor Relations Board, thrashing out the finer points of labor law and trying to relate it all to the unique set of conditions involved in the writing of Scooby Doo cartoons. The statutes are all written to cover things like coal mining and fruit picking, and we had to apply that terminology to what we did. I guess we didn't do a good enough job because in a decision that showed all the wisdom of the first O.J. jury, we lost. We got a verdict that even our opponents admitted didn't quite make sense, though they liked the part that said cartoon writers had to remain with the union they wanted to leave.

As the pronouns in the above paragraph suggest, I was deeply immersed in the battle both as witness and as advisor to the WGA legal team. I was also involved a few years later when we tried again, attacking the problem from a different legal angle. This time, we won the first decision on a unanimous vote and then got reversed on appeal. Fifteen years later, the reversal was effectively reversed but by then, other complications prevented the original plan from being reinstated.

By then, I had long since decided my Norma Rae days were over and left the battle to others. I'm happy to report that changing times have enabled them to accomplish some (alas, not all) of the things we were unable to achieve in the eighties. A lot of new animation studios entered the field and they were not signed to Local 839 and were therefore open to a contract with the WGA, especially on prime-time cartoon shows like The Simpsons. Also, the guy at 839 who was indifferent to writers was booted out and his replacement is much saner and in touch with the industry. Today, The Animation Guild (which is the new name of 839) represents everyone at some studios but the WGA bargains for writers on a number of shows, and you can read more about all this in this section of the WGA website.

Over there, you'll see mention of the Animation Writers Caucus, which is a subset of the WGA catering to those who write cartoons. They're having their annual meeting this Thursday evening and among the items on the agenda is the presentation of the annual A.W.C. Award to the member who…

Hmm. You know, I just read the press release that says I'm getting this thing and I'm not sure what it's for. But the legendary announcer and cartoon voice actor Gary Owens is presenting it to me so it must be important. Guess I'd better shave.

Here's a statement by the Libertarian Party on the Rush Limbaugh matter. I shun all drugs including tobacco and alcohol but I agree with this view.

All this week, as a Halloween stunt I guess, the comic strip Dilbert is being drawn not by Scott Adams but by mystery artists. The idea is that you have to guess who the famous cartoonist is who's illustrating each day's strip. If you go to this page, you can see each strip and find out the answer.

Thanks to Mark Thorson for letting me know about this. And I should further thank Mark who, along with Rephah Berg, is quick to alert me when I make a typo here. If there's one in this message, I'll hear from Mark or Rephah before 10:00.

It always interests me to see the way political arguments drift and how certain questionable "facts" get established in some minds. Critics of George W. Bush have lately been saying that he lied to America that there was an imminent threat to us from Iraq. Ergo, we had to go to war promptly and not wait for those weapons inspectors to inspect further for weapons. If true, that would be a pretty serious charge, so Bush defenders are arguing back that their president never said the threat was "imminent" and they haul out quotes where his precise words seem to say the opposite.

In a strict sense, they're probably right. And in another sense, it may not matter. Al Gore never said he found Love Canal or that he was the model for Love Story, but his detractors did a good job of convincing a lot of "swing" voters that he did, and therefore nothing he said could be believed. If Bush's foes can work the same full court press on him, the "liar" portrait will stick. In political discourse, we are well past the stage where what someone says really matters. Of much greater importance is how their opponents can spin it, and the Democrats haven't been that good at taking an ambiguous statement or gaffe and running with it. Then again, the Bush administration has given them so much raw material, they may just pull it off.

Our pal Peter David posts this report on going to see Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks, a new Broadway play with Polly Bergen and Mark Hamill. I echo all the comments on what a nice, professional guy Mark is.

Someone just wrote to ask me a question about 3-D comic books. I referred them to Ray Zone's website. Ray knows more about 3-D comic books than any man alive…and has made more of them happen.