Fwd: 'Doonesbury' Strip Showing Bush Defending Frat Torture at Yale is 'Fact-Based,' Says Garry Trudeau

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- Shaun Toole

 

Thursday, December 01, 2005 10:55 AM

'Doonesbury' Strip Showing Bush Defending Frat Torture at Yale is

'Fact-Based,' Says Garry Trudeau

 

 

 

Truth is stranger than fiction...

from Shaun Toole, Houston

 

 

'Doonesbury' Strip Showing Bush Defending Frat Torture at Yale is 'Fact-Based,'

Says Garry Trudeau

 

By Dave Astor

 

Published: November 29, 2005 8:00 AM ET

 

NEW YORK Was this past Sunday's " Doonesbury " -- which had George W. Bush

defending the burning of Yale University fraternity initiates with a brand in

1967 -- fact or fiction?

 

" Totally fact-based, " replied Garry Trudeau, in response to an E & P e-mail query.

" Bush's comment in panel seven is a direct quote, which is why I put it in

quotation marks. In the original Yale Daily News expose, we ran a photo of a

pledge's seared backside. "

 

Trudeau, a Yale grad, added: " I did a week on this in the strip back during the

2000 election. The reason I revisited the episode is that it's gained in

relevance with the president's reluctance to forego torture in

intelligence-gathering. "

 

The branding, which was exposed by the Yale paper, was first covered by The New

York Times in a Nov. 8, 1967, article. Trudeau much later told Rolling Stone in

an interview that he drew his first editorial cartoon for the Yale Daily News

during the branding controversy.

 

According to that 1967 Times article, " The charge that has caused the most

controversy on the Yale campus is that Delta Kappa Epsilon applied a 'hot

branding iron' to the small of the back of its 40 new members in the shape of

the Greek letter Delta, approximately a half inch wide, appeared with the

article. " It added that a former president of Delta revealed that " the branding

is done with a hot coat hanger. But the former president, George Bush, a Yale

senior, said that the resulting wound is 'only a cigarette burn.' "

 

This week's Sunday strip (http://www.ucomics.com/doonesbury/2005/11/27/) shows

the Mark Slackmeyer character mentioning that Bush's alleged support of torture

has roots in 1967 Yale. The Universal Press Syndicate-distributed comic then

switches back in time to show screams emanating from the true-life Delta Kappa

Epsilon fraternity.

 

" The student paper breaks the story: DKE has been branding their pledges on

their backsides with red-hot coathangers, " Slackmeyer narrates. " DKE President

George W. Bush defends the branding ritual in statements to the press. "

 

The collegiate Bush is then quoted in panel seven as saying: " Insignificant!

There's no scarring mark physically or mentally! "

 

In the eighth and last panel, Slackmeyer is shown again in 2005 as he says: " The

rest is history. This has been 'Defining Moments in Torture'! " And the

present-day Bush, sitting in the White House, says: " Human pyramids? Hell, I did

those as a cheerleader! "

 

 

 

Dave Astor (dastor) is a senior editor at E & P.

 

 

" When the power of love becomes stronger than the love of power, we will have

peace. "

Jimi Hendrix