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CNN Sunday Morning

Interview with Cartoonist Mike Luckovich

Aired June 09, 2002 - 08:38   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Janet Reno was a popular target for political cartoonists, like maybe our next guest, Mike Luckovich. He wields his pen for the "Atlanta Constitution," and he is a regular visitor here on "CNN SUNDAY." Thank you for joining us. That's a perfect...

MIKE LUCKOVICH, POLITICAL CARTOONIST: Martin Sheen and Janet Reno? I can't wait to get into the office tomorrow and do a cartoon on that.

PHILLIPS: Your next one. How are you doing, glad to have you back. It's been too long.

LUCKOVICH: I'm so happy to be here. It's always fun to come and talk to you all, and share my cartoons.

PHILLIPS: Always a good story to share. And I know you brought one and you did this last night?

LUCKOVICH: No, I actually, I did this sitting in the green room. I'm always well prepared.

PHILLIPS: This morning?

LUCKOVICH: This morning.

PHILLIPS: Oh, my goodness.

LUCKOVICH: This was on celebrities testifying in Congress. Last week, we had a Backstreet Boy testifying on mountain top mining. One of the senators, I guess, boycotted it because he thought this whole celebrity thing is getting a little silly. So, this is one I did. This is upcoming next week, I think. It's the congressional hearings on U.S. intelligence failures. And I've got Pierce Brosnan, agent 007, he's saying "maybe the FBI and CIA did nothing because the director forget to yell 'action'!"

PHILLIPS: It amazes me that you can come up with these so early in the morning -- is it coffee, or just pure brilliance?

LUCKOVICH: No, just pure panic. Thinking, oh, I was supposed to do this and now I've got to draw this out.

PHILLIPS: All right, I didn't look ahead of the other ones that you brought in. But I do have a order on what we're going to talk about. Now this next one, I understand, Rumsfeld actually called you and said he wanted a copy of this?

LUCKOVICH: Right, now this is not one of my favorite cartoons, but it's Bush and he's talking to FBI Director Mueller and Rumsfeld and Cheney, and he's saying, "Anything interesting? Intelligence warning wise." You see their hair standing on end. I think I may have given Cheney too much hair.

But anyway, a colonel called and said that Rumsfeld wanted the drawing and that if I sent him the drawing, he would send me a print back signed. So I sent that to him. What I also did, though, is I drew up a little thing that says "official" on it, and it has an official seal with Rumsfeld's face on it, and it says "from the desk of Donald Rumsfeld." And it says, "this entitles Mike Luckovich weekend use of an M1 Abrams tank and a free lunch at the Pentagon cafeteria; signed," and then I left a little place for him to sign.

So I'm really hoping he comes through with me on that.

PHILLIPS: That is great for negotiations. You're talking with the paper about your big $1 million salary.

LUCKOVICH: Right, yeah, I'll be able to show them that goofy thing there. And if you want a tank ride, I can arrange it.

PHILLIPS: You'll take me? To and from work, that would be lovely.

LUCKOVICH: You got it.

PHILLIPS: All right, next one?

LUCKOVICH: Now you all remember the memo from the Phoenix agent that was ignored about the flight school, the guys at the flight school.

PHILLIPS: Right.

LUCKOVICH: So I did this cartoon trying to imagine what his -- what is happening now. I've got an FBI agent as saying, "This one says hi, this one says TGIF, this one says Diamondbacks rule," he's looking at memos. And the other guy says, "Doesn't matter, all of the Phoenix agents memos now go straight to the director." So anything that guy wants to put out gets seen.

PHILLIPS: All right, FBI reorganization, another hotbed of criticism.

LUCKOVICH: Right, I don't know how this is all going to work out. And the FBI seems to be such an entrenched organization that it will be interesting to see what happens. I did this cartoon on that. Mueller is saying, "Effective immediately, the left one will switch with the right one."

PHILLIPS: Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil. You got our crew laughing on that one. It's working.

LUCKOVICH: Now, last week, the congressional 9/11 hearings, we had the FBI and the CIA and they were kind of trying to blame each other. And so, in this cartoon, if we can show that, I've got a congressman saying, "I'm glad to see the finger-pointings ended." You see the FBI and CIA agents have taken their shoes off and they're pointing their toes now.

PHILLIPS: You're pretty generous with those feet.

LUCKOVICH: Yeah, you got to make sure people see them.

PHILLIPS: All right. Global warming.

LUCKOVICH: In my opinion, this has got to be -- Bush has done a great job with the war on terrorism, I wish there would be a war on global warming. He's just let that go. He lets industry kind of decide his policy on this. So I've got an aide holding a piece of paper that says "global warning." And Bush is holding a big globe and he's saying, "Well, it doesn't feel any hotter to me."

PHILLIPS: Maybe he should point to the South Pole and touch the bottom of the earth there -- you can see all the way to the bottom of the earth.

LUCKOVICH: Yes, that would be a good idea.

PHILLIPS: Middle East crisis?

LUCKOVICH: Now, you remember when he choked on the pretzel recently, President Bush?

PHILLIPS: Yes.

LUCKOVICH: I was trying to imagine while the pretzel he has to deal with now, which is, the Middle East crisis, which is a huge mess, and how he's going to deal with that.

So I've got the two dogs that witnessed the first pretzel choking, one of them saying to the other, "this should be interesting," as he tries to swallow a gigantic Middle East crisis pretzel.

PHILLIPS: In Pakistan, another big one he's dealing with.

LUCKOVICH: That is just -- this is so incredibly scary. And how do we keep our focus on the terror war? So I've got Uncle Sam wedged between an Indian and Pakistani nuclear missiles, and he's thinking to himself, "must keep focus on terror war."

PHILLIPS: Either that or it looks like a shuttle. Miles would say space shuttle.

LUCKOVICH: Yes, exactly.

PHILLIPS: All right. Arthur Andersen. Here's another one. LUCKOVICH: Well, here's the thing. This hasn't got a lot of play, I don't think. Let me read the cartoon before I give it away. If we could show that. It's a two-panel. Bush is saying, "We were friends, but as CEO, your company cooked its books with Arthur Andersen's help, so quit calling." The second panel you see the phone ringing again, and he's saying, "god, Dick Cheney's annoying." It's the Halliburton investigation.

PHILLIPS: You kill me with those ears, by the way.

LUCKOVICH: You know, I get some complaints about that, but you know, you've got to -- it's a cartoon, so you've got to have a little fun with the ears.

PHILLIPS: All right, we've got time for one more. The last one, "Star Wars" Botox -- have you had any Botox parties lately?

LUCKOVICH: No, I haven't attended yet, but Yoda has. Look how smooth he looks there.

PHILLIPS: Permanent Botox injection. He actually started it, right?

LUCKOVICH: Yeah. He popularized it.

PHILLIPS: He's a rich man -- Mike Luckovich, always a pleasure, thank you so much.

LUCKOVICH: Kyra, thanks for having me.

PHILLIPS: Will you come back and entertain us again?

LUCKOVICH: I will do that.

PHILLIPS: All right, very good.

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