Ombudsman: Trudeau’s election ‘Hoo-Ah’ escapes an Uh-Oh

"Doonesbury" is a perennially favorite topic for letter writers to Stars and Stripes. You either hate that studiously controversial comic strip, or you love it. You want Stripes to yank it, or you plead for it to stay in the name of free speech.

Attention to the strip and its creator, Garry Trudeau, welled up again in the letters columns recently. Readers unburdened themselves of mostly generic arguments about the strip’s supposed status as a vehicle of treason, or a treasure. What surprised me was that a great example of "Doonesbury’s" chutzpah went virtually unnoticed: It called the presidential election before it was held.

Long before Nov. 4, Trudeau sent out a strip for publication the day after the election, showing troops cheering Barack Obama’s victory. In truth, as Trudeau himself noted afterward, there wasn’t that much chutzpah involved; Obama had been heavily favored. Still, it was a nervy move, and had some editors around the U.S. scratching their heads. They had to decide well beforehand whether to run the presumptuous strip. To a person, I’m sure, they recalled the 1948 headline that screamed, mistakenly: "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN."

It was none other than the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper that dropped the bomb of a headline 60 years ago, that first contacted the Atlantic Syndicate about the "Doonesbury" strip. "They asked for some substitute strips," said syndicate rep Sue Rausch, "so we sent out some from last August. We sent the same strips to other papers that asked." There were more than a few. Among the major ones, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution did not run the strip. The Los Angeles times asked readers what they thought, got a positive response, and put it in.

Trudeau defended his penciled hot potato. He said John McCain’s chances were too slim for him to issue a "McCain wins" alternative strip. "From a risk-assessment viewpoint, I felt comfortable with the odds," he told The Associated Press. He’d be the one with "egg on my face" if Obama blew it, he said.

That’s what Stripes thought as well, said Executive Editor Robb Grindstaff, who announced days before the vote that the strip would appear. "If Obama wins, it will be up-to-the-minute commentary," he told a reporter. "If McCain wins, these will be collectors’ items."

There is a twist. In other newspapers, the strip appeared on Wednesday, Nov. 5, the same day they reported the election results. It was the same day that a soldierly "Hoo-Ah" hailing Obama’s victory in "Doonesbury" rang out from the pages of Stripes. But for Stripes, that was the day before the paper reported that he had won. Stripes’ early deadlines — so timed to accommodate overseas presses — meant the results had to be reported in editions of Thursday, Nov. 6 (Friday, Nov. 7 for Pacific readers).

Either way, the turn of events fell Trudeau’s way, depriving us of watching its "deft humor," as one letter writer recently described the strip’s chief attribute, climb out of this one. Trudeau probably would have enjoyed the challenge.

Got a question or suggestion for the ombudsman on what appears, or should appear, in Stars and Stripes? Send an e-mail to ombudsman@stripes.osd.mil, or phone 202-761-0945 in the States. For several links associated with this column, please go to David Mazzarella’s Readers’ Corner blog. It can be found here.