Tag: The Family Circus

In the mid-1970s, cartoonist Bil Keane’s popular comic strip “The Family Circus” featured a cute but devious little invisible gremlin named “Not Me.” This gremlin took the blame for various happenstances in the family household that the children denied having committed. Today, “Not Me” seems to have grown up to become the most influential figure in American politics. But the White House is far from the only place we find the “Not Me” gremlin scurrying about. The campaign of the one-time aspirant of the White House, Hillary Clinton, spawned a colony of the gremlins bounding afoot. “Not Me” says it was former FBI director James Comey’s fault. The former president may not be sorry but the American people are. Sorry that we live in a time where it seems no one is willing to be held accountable for choices and actions. Instead we live in a time of “grievance politics,” where you succeed by framing other parties as those responsible for your personal travails. This ongoing American “Family Circus” is a strip that we should retire and replace with a new idea based on honesty, integrity and a focus on what really matters for the “readers,” the American people. Bruce Haynes is vice chair of public affairs and managing director for Sard Verbinnen & Co. in its Washington, D.C., office.