Smelling a rat

If you're looking for a bomb-throwing liberal media cartoonist, look no further than the SF Chronicle's Don Asmussen, whose Bad Reporter strip crucifies the world. A few weeks ago he managed to combine the Terri Schaivo, chili finger and dying Pope stories into a single mind-boggling strip that had frantic pro-lifers trying to keep the finger alive on life support. today (go here for an archived strip) he mashes the election conclave, Bernard Law, the church sex abuse scandal, and Mark McGuire into a single priceless whole. Between him and Mark Morford (latest column: "14 Thoughts For The New Pope -- Condoms. Female priests. Stop gay bashing. And dammit, do something about Christian rock") there's plenty of evidence why San Francisco is, well, a special place. And why the alt-weeklies have such a hard time getting traction if the leading newspaper in town publishes stuff like this.