It's too bad that the production staff couldn't/didn't get Ralph Steadman to participate in this discussion. He very publically stopped doing political cartooning about ten years ago on the grounds that it had become little more than a lifestyle porn accessory for the ruling elite. Meanwhile, it appears that Steadman has something not unlike a weblog.In a 24/7 news cycle, the political cartoonist lives on the verge of constant overload. Artist, news junkie, provocateur, the political cartoonist digests reams of newspaper column inches and hours of broadcast news reports in the daily quest for the angles that rankle, those choice twists of news that best lend themselves to visual interpretation.