Benny & Sid Presents Chapter 2 of the Serialized Graphic Novel The Truant Officer

We've got a president who accepts the challenge dumped into his lap by the economic mismanagement of this nation by every president since Jimmy Carter.

(Your City, USA) - The unemployment numbers are obscene. Good men and women pick themselves up morning after morning and do their rounds only to be told to come back the next day. "Sorry Mac, I've got nothing for you today." They grit their teeth into what passes for a smile and move on.

Maybe he's a logger. Maybe she's a waitress. Maybe they've got kids who need glasses and grandma needs a triple by-pass. Do they deserve a break? Could these good people use government health insurance? Damn right.

It's the working man who's the backbone of this nation. It's the guys who take their lunch to work in a brown paper bag. Don't anybody forget it. All you golf-club Republicans better remind yourselves of that. It's the blue collars that creates the wealth that puts money in the bank for the white collars to buy vacation homes and private schools for their kids and pay for private insurance. That sound socialist to you?

It seems to me that the guys calling the shots don't ever figure they're the ones who should be standing in the unemployments lines. They do manage to figure out a way to give themselves bonuses after they trash the companies they're in charge of. Imagine that.

We've got a president who accepts the challenge dumped into his lap by the economic mismanagement of this nation by every president since Jimmy Carter. But the cure is slow, friends. The cure is slow. May we all come out of it at the end whole and better people.

Leonardo (Glen L. Bledsoe), Salem-News.com cartoonist, was born and raised in Indiana. He graduated from Indiana University with a Bachelors of Art in Fine Arts and was a student at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for several years. Glen made his home in Oregon in the early 80's where he continues to enjoy the mild climate and lack of sales tax.

He and his wife Karen have published seventeen books together for the school library market. Glen has written extensively on the issues of technology and education for the National Education Association and other publications. When he is not creating this unique cartoon series, Glen is either teaching, writing a novel, composing music, or reading.