{"id":612,"date":"2011-11-20T04:06:53","date_gmt":"2011-11-20T04:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kurtoonsonline.com\/?page_id=612"},"modified":"2022-04-09T12:12:40","modified_gmt":"2022-04-09T17:12:40","slug":"the-sinister-handshake","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.kurtoonsonline.com\/?page_id=612","title":{"rendered":"The Sinister Handshake"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(April 20, 2009)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kurtoonsonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/oped042009.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-613\" title=\"oped042009\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kurtoonsonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/oped042009.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"513\" height=\"386\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.kurtoonsonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/oped042009.jpg 513w, http:\/\/www.kurtoonsonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/oped042009-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 513px) 100vw, 513px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Obama received criticism for meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a socialist leader and outspoken critic of the United States.\u00a0 Here, I admit I am being inconsistent.\u00a0 In an earlier cartoon I mocked Obama for reaching out to his opponents in the Religious Right; here I&#8217;m mocking the people outraged that Obama would reach out to one of America&#8217;s opponents.\u00a0 Yeah, I guess I contradict myself.<\/p>\n<p>But I think that &#8220;extending a hand&#8221; is a good metaphor for much of Obama&#8217;s early term in office.\u00a0 This is good in some respects:\u00a0 I think he has tried hard to heal bad feelings and find common ground with his political adversaries; but I think it&#8217;s been bad in others:\u00a0 some of his adversaries would rather kiss a mugwump than yield Obama any political ground whatsoever, and so his efforts at compromise have often been futile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(April 20, 2009) Obama received criticism for meeting with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a socialist leader and outspoken critic of the United States.\u00a0 Here, I admit I am being inconsistent.\u00a0 In an earlier cartoon I mocked Obama for reaching out[&hellip;]<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.kurtoonsonline.com\/?page_id=612\">&darr; Read the rest of this entry&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":593,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-612","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","uentry","postonpage-1","odd","post-author-kurtwilcken"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kurtoonsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kurtoonsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kurtoonsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kurtoonsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kurtoonsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.kurtoonsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/612\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.kurtoonsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.kurtoonsonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}