Final Word

A priceless treasure

Dwane Powell is an absolute treasure, in the class of Paul Szep and Dan Wasserman at the Boston Globe. Surely he deserves a Pulitzer after all these years.

Thanks for publishing some of his best works of 2006. Was he too hard on politicians? No way! If only public ridicule and shame could penetrate the thick skins of the politicians or arouse the citizens from their lethargy.

My prize for the year would go to "Scary is as scary does," showing Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld out on a trick or treat. Priceless!

As with the late Art Buchwald, Powell's brand of satire, no matter how riotously hilarious, is usually deadly serious, as it must be in response to the dangerous, destructive and profoundly tragic folly of the Bush gang. My new year's hope is that America can somehow survive two more years with Bush in the saddle as our nation's thinker and decider.

Evan K. Miller

Sanford

Let them sweat

Dwane Powell is the best cartoonist of them all. I have looked forward to his cartoons every day for years and am disappointed if someone else's work is there. His characterizations are wonderfully accurate and seldom fail to make me laugh. If his humor hurts a little, the people involved usually deserve it. Let them sweat if they're doing something foolish!

Of course, there have been some sad ones, too. Hopefully, they all make people think about what's going on in the world.

Mr. Powell: Don't change anything!

Martha Taylor

Dunn

What makes our day

Every morning over toast and decaf, the missus and I reach for The News & Observer. She goes right to the obituaries. I go right to Dwane Powell's cartoon on the editorial page. She sighs with relief. I let out a big guffaw. The N&O has again made the day for two old folks !

Bob Adams

Cary

No laughing matters

Dwane Powell has followed the same path as many other liberal, Democratic, anti-Bush cartoonists. Serious issues are often trivialized to poke fun at the Bush administration.

Yes, I do believe The New York Times does the country a disservice by disclosing the methods being used to fight those who have declared war against us. Monitoring phone calls from the U.S. to suspected terrorists in other countries is fine with me. Using the international banking system to follow transfers of money to terrorist groups is also fine. It appears that some people are more anti-Bush than they are pro-USA.

Andrew S. Barclay

Cary

He keeps us coming back

Dwane Powell's cartoons are inspired and contemporary. He distills the essence of important current affairs and presents the issues in a manner to which writing is not equal. He enriches The N&O.

We continue our subscription in large measure due to his insight and presentations.

William G. Ruger

Apex

A rare gift

Political cartoonists who aren't state or corporate flunkies are a direly endangered species, extinct in much of the world and rapidly decreasing in America. All of us who read The N&O are lucky indeed to have Dwane Powell still around and still -- as the 2006 cartoon roundup shows -- clicking on all six cylinders (or is it eight?).

You don't have to agree with a cartoon's point of view to appreciate it. Even the ones not on "your side" can make you laugh and/or think. (I keep visualizing a McMansion mom opening her morning paper to Dwane's great zinger that shows high-living suburbanites who deny neither themselves nor their kids any latest toy or goody, clucking that Wake's crammed schools need to "start economizing" before they'll vote for a school bond issue. Marvelous.)