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Transcripts

December 20, 2004

Host: Michael Grant
Topics:
· Politcal Cartoonists
In-Studio Guests:
· Steve Benson, Arizona Republic editorial cartoonist;
· Brian Fairrington, Arizona Republic editorial cartoonist;
· Mike Ritter, Tribune editorial cartoonist

>> Michael Grant:
Tonight on "Horizon," illustrating the news with an attitude. Arizona Republic editorial cartoonists Steve Benson and Brian Fairrington and Tribune editorial cartoonist Mike Ritter join us to talk about the major stories of 2004 and how they drew them. Good evening, I'm Michael Grant. Welcome to a special edition of "Horizon." From the election to corporate scandals to the war in Iraq, this has got to have been a good year for editorial cartoonists. Steve, am I right?

>> Steve Benson:
Oh, it's been great. If only Brian Fairrington wouldn't dress up like a funeral home director, we could have some fun tonight. Yeah, we kind -- we languish our way through four years and then three years of haze and we don't understand and it becomes crystal clear on election year.

>> Michael Grant:
Mike, is a presidential election year, I mean, is it the zenith for a political cartoonist?

>> Mike Ritter:
Yeah, but the problem is it's no longer just a year. They tend to overlap in some sort of space-time continuum. But, yeah, it's great, it's wonderful. But I was really ready for this one to be over about a month before it was.

>> Michael Grant:
Did you get exhausted too?

>> Brian Fairrington:
Totally. What Mike said, that's the problem. They start campaigning so early. We all have to go home next month and start cartoons about Hillary running. The election year lasts for four years.

>> Michael Grant:
Do you sometimes have maybe a reverse problem with shot selection? I mean, there's so many opportunities?

>> Brian Fairrington:
Too many choices, not enough time.

>> Michael Grant:
You just don't know where to go, Steve?

>> Steve Benson:
Well, I love election years, and I was O.D.'ing on George W. I had Simon on the brain. It was terrific. I was able to draw his family and all his related relatives there. Like I had just been to the primate section of the zoo. Plus we had all this great material, and Kerry, of course, as well.

>> Michael Grant:
We better get to the cartoons because we always run out of time on this show. So the first segment we have cleverly entitled "Why Kerry lost." Steve, you're first up that.

>> Steve Benson:
If I hear one more time, it was a mandate, I'm not going to spend the political capital that the voters have given me I think I'll hurl off a cliff. Kerry lost because he has the charisma of a speed bump. That is why he lost. It was 51-48. It was a tight election. 70,000 vote difference in Ohio. We're seeing the blues instead of the reds. He lost because he just didn't connect. He didn't have the personality. And he -- he wasn't on message.

>> Michael Grant:
You know what they said, he was Al Gore without the sizzle.

>> Steve Benson:
He was raw meat.

>> Michael Grant:
Mike, you think he lost because he was basically out of touch?

>> Mike Ritter:
I think what Steve said about not being on message. There was -- nothing ever congealed as far as what he was going to do. What he did say he was going to do he put in such ridiculous terms. The crack about a more sensitive war, frankly, I know exactly what he meant and I like the concept, I like the idea of not alienating the entire world to meet our objectives. But hey just seized on that and it played right into the stereotypes of liberal Democrats. I'm not saying it's right but I'm saying that's why it was able to get that spin.

>> Steve Benson:
But Bush used the "S" word, too, and so did Cheney. They said we've got to be concerns and cultural realities of the larger world.

>> Mike Ritter:
But at the same time, Bush said I have not made any mistakes in this. It's go on. It's I'm resolute. And that's --

>> Steve Benson:
How insensitive is that?

>> Mike Ritter:
Frankly, America is scared right now and I think when America is scared we sometimes can be a very ugly country.

>> Michael Grant:
Brian, your theory is the flip-flops caught up with him?

>> Brian Fairrington:
That's part of it. He didn't have charisma. The perception that he flip-flopped on issues and Bush probably flip-flopped on as many issues, but it's just a testament to the Bush reelection mechanism and machine because -- in order to take Kerry, who was a genuine war hero, and turn him to the bad guy and make and make Bush --

>> Steve Benson:
That was surreal.

>> Brian Fairrington:
It's brilliant. They made -- they could have put up anybody and Bush probably would have beat him.

>> Steve Benson:
For the record, Bush flip-flopped on the 9/11 Commission, which he opposed. For the record, he opposed -- he was opposed to -- eventually to eliminating carbon dioxides from emissions when during the campaign he said he was in favor of it. He flips and he flops.

>> Mike Ritter:
But the main point of his go forward on the war, I made no mistakes, that sort of again resoluteness, if you want to call it that, that arrogance I prefer to call it, put up against someone who had nuanced opinions, God help him.

>> Michael Grant:
If you guys could do me a favor here and state some clear and definitive opinions, I would really appreciate it.

>> Mike Ritter:
Your hair looks funny.

>> Steve Benson:
No, my hair looks funny, actually.

>> Michael Grant:
With this cartoon, Mike, are you saying that Karl Rove is, in fact, a genius, that it was the religious right?

>> Mike Ritter:
An evil genius. I think that's a big part of it. They came out in huge droves. The Republican Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary right now of the religious right, and they have the bit in their teeth, and so that was the point of this cartoon.

>> Steve Benson:
Rove's droves...

>> Mike Ritter:
Note the camera angle, to underscore the fact he is not in an overall office, this is not actually the White House.

>> Michael Grant:
The cost of war is the next segment, Mike, in your fairly dramatic cartoon here. This would have been September --

>> Mike Ritter:
This was when we passed the milestone of a thousand killed, which we just passed the milestone of a thousand killed in combat. This included things like accidents and suicides that have happened amongst servicemen.

>> Michael Grant:
The cost of war, Steve?

>> Steve Benson:
The famous line, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago," it's always good to take a glib little one-liner that a president has used and turn it against him. So all I can say is, Peace, and we are not better off than we were four years ago, and ask that of the G.I.s coming back maimed or coming back in boxes.

>> Michael Grant:
Brian, you're pretty much taking the same tact with this cartoon.

>> Brian Fairrington:
I think -- all in the Bush administration had anticipated we would probably be out of Iraq by now and here it is Christmas 2004 and we're still shipping boys home in boxes.

>> Steve Benson:
And women, too.

>> Brian Fairrington:
Yes, true. It's a sad reality, and if it continues, the antiwar sentiment is going to continue to build up and that's going to be a big problem in Bush's second term.

>> Steve Benson:
But you go to war with the army you got, so buck up.

>> Michael Grant:
Anybody got any optimism about the election process at the end of January?

>> Mike Ritter:
I think -- I hope it comes off well. I think this whole thing could in the end be, you know -- I won't say a good thing, but it could end well. I supported the war. My big problem with what's going on now is largely the way it's been executed, which I think is completely ham-fisted and created a lot more problems than it should have.

>> Michael Grant:
Abu Ghraib --

>> Steve Benson:
Of course, we have the torture guy, as Marine -- calls -- Gonzalez, who is going to be apparently the next Attorney General, who is justifying, who justified in memos to the President that the Geneva conventions are quaint and no longer relevant to the prosecution of an effective war. So forget the international law that we signed. This goes all the way to the top. It infected the White House from the top down, and the idea all is fair in love and war and we'll violate prisoner rights. It was a horrible atrocity that went on in those prisons as well as at Guantanamo Bay.

>> Michael Grant:
Is this a soldier from West Virginia?

>> Steve Benson:
No, this is --

>> Mike Ritter:
That's what's her face, isn't it?

>> Lindsey --

>> Steve Benson:
Yes, Private England, who is now facing some 30 years in prison.

>> Michael Grant:
I think it was West Virginia.

>> Steve Benson:
No, that was Jessica --

>> Michael Grant:
Oh, well. Brian, you've got one.

>> Brian Fairrington:
On the heels of Abu Ghraib there was a lot of Arab outrage about the -- Middle Eastern outrage about the treatment and I thought this was a time to point out the hypocrisy. Where was all the outcry when they were beheading people? Their human rights violations. Things like that. So it doesn't discount that what happened in the prison over in Iraq was wrong, it was absolutely wrong. It shouldn't have happened. But --

>> Steve Benson:
Why didn't you comment on it?

>>Brian Fairrington:
Well, you know, this -- this was a bigger issue. Getting people's heads chopped off was a bigger issue.

>> Michael Grant:
Mike, you actually get to the fact that I had mispronounced this word 13 times in the past two minutes.

>> Mike Ritter:
As have I.

>> Mike Ritter:
This cartoon came from when Bush was -- I don't know which speech it was, but he paused, thought about it, then mispronounced it, and I'm saying I don't know how to pronounce it, but I'm saying, you know, if I'm sitting in front of Congress, giving a speech, get it down. That gave the idea for this idea where he stumbles all over it and all these different pronunciations and ends up with, Can't we just call it a boo-boo and get over it?

>> Brian Fairrington:
What was the great Bush boo-boo where he said we can't get fooled again, what was that?

>> Steve Benson:
Bush mispronounces words like "and" and "the." That's way beyond him.

>> Michael Grant:
I was just going to say, in fairness, I must have heard about 119 different pronunciations of this thing over about four networks in three days. So --

>> Mike Ritter:
I still don't know how to pronounce Gadhafi, so...

>> Brian Fairrington:
Or spell it.

>> Steve Benson:
Jessica Lynch was from West Virginia.

>> Michael Grant:
That's right. Terrorism, Brian, your entry.

>> Brian Fairrington:
Again, this goes back to the cartoon I did before about Arab extremism and the moderate Arab world looking the other way and our relationship with the moderate Arab world, particularly Saudi Arabia, and it's all based on oil, and if -- if anything ever happened to our relationship with oil, if we all started driving electric cars tomorrow, we better watch out because I think --

>> Mike Ritter:
In what alternative universe is Saudi Arabia moderate?

>> Brian Fairrington:
Compared to -- they don't -- blatantly take hostages and chop off their heads. They do that in soccer stadiums.

>> Michael Grant:
This one must have been penned as the 9/11 Commission was in progress.

>> Steve Benson:
Looking the other way, as Brian has so eloquently observed, Bush looked the other way, the FBI looked the other way, the CIA looked the other way, Condoleeza Rice under a grilling in the Senate hearings said, Well, yeah, the headline on the memo, "Osama intends to attack the United States," yeah, we could have looked at that as a warning, but the pre-9/11 warnings were there, and we just didn't see them. We just -- or were incompetent.

>> Michael Grant: You are picking up the terrorism theme, obviously, with an election overturn.

>> Mike Ritter:
This cartoon was more than that. This goes back to what I was saying earlier about the prosecution of the war and this idea that you don't change riders in mid-stream, you must re-elect Bush because we are in this war regardless of how it's being executed and also played upon the fact so much of his support comes from the religious right, and so I used a biblical metaphor, which really ticked off a lot of people.

>> Michael Grant:
I was going to say did you get a lot of e-mail.

>> Mike Ritter:
Oh, gosh, yes. Probably my favorite cartoon of the year that I did, and I find that just a frightening concept that even people who admitted they didn't like the way the war is being executed, well, you don't change horsemen mid-stream, I think that's terrifying. That's ridiculous, especially in a democracy.

>> Michael Grant:
Incidentally, Steve, how was the clamor and threatening to ride you out of town on the rail the input you got this year, particularly brutal year?

>> Steve Benson:
I have never seen a more brutal year, and I have to credit the far right because I didn't know they knew how to put BRU and TAL together in one word or attach nouns and verbs. But they use the Internet prolifically. They're accusing me of being full of hate and wallowing in anger and anguish. Well, I got four years of great material to look forward to. But, yeah, it was -- it's been a vicious, vicious campaign year.

>> Brian Fairrington:
It's amazing, people are incredibly brave and vicious on a keyboard. One on one, they would be timid. You would be amazed at the kind of vicious, vile kind hateful things that they'll write on e-mail. And that's all from my grandmother, by the way.

>> Mike Ritter:
They're not stupid. This started years ago. First you seize the school board. This is the culmination of a brilliant long-term political strategy while the Democrats have just allowed themselves to be shamed and just completely lost focus of who they are and that, too, has been the process that's been taking place over the last 20 years. So they're not stupid at all.

>> Steve Benson:
What are you talking about, the Republicans?

>> Mike Ritter:
Talking about Republicans, but particularly the right wing religious Republicans who have taken over the party.

>> Steve Benson:
The strategists may not be stupid, but their little troopers sure sound stupid in the e-mails.

>> Mike Ritter:
They are the potato salad mid-American Taliban, yes, but they not stupid.

>> Michael Grant:
Don't hold back, Mike, do me a favor. All right. Michael Moore, front and center. Brian.

>> Brian Fairrington:
First of all, I like Michael Moore, I like his films, I think "Roger and Me" is a great movie. I liked "Fahrenheit 9/11." The problem with it was I thought he was a little loose with some of the facts. He misrepresented some of the headlines to make a point. That's fine.

>> Michael Grant:
Who was it that -- the newspaper that --

>>Brian Fairrington:
Right, there was a newspaper somewhere --

>> Michael Grant:
Like an Indiana newspaper where --

>> Brian Fairrington: A letter to editor --

>> Steve Benson:
The "New York Times" called 9/11 -- "Fahrenheit 9/11" an editorial cartoon, which is the highest compliment I think could be given. It's not a documentary. It's not objective. It's a filmmaker making a statement from his political perspective. And the reason why it upset so many people is because they disagree with it. But I had somebody write me and say, "You and Michael Moore are two peas in the same pod." I said, "Thank you, he's a great American and a fine filmmaker."

>> Mike Ritter:
The thing is, when you write and editorial cartoon, or they read it, they know what they're getting. The fact is, cartoon or not, it was presented in a documentary fashion, and I -- and -- he's got a right to do that and take it for what it is, but I think it's somewhat disingenuous.

>> Michael Grant:
On your Cartoon on Moore, give me your take here?

>> Mike Ritter: It's the enemy of my enemy is my friend was the concept basically, and the idea that he presented pre-war Iraq as some sort of idyllic Mid Eastern situation for the people of Iraq, that's just so over the top and ridiculous.

>> Steve Benson: It was completely lost on me, this cartoon. You've got way too many words in this.

>> Mike Ritter: It was really just a chance to draw Saddam in a "Spider-Man" --

>> Brian Fairrington: In the opening of "Fahrenheit 9/11" he's got the kids playing in the playground and nice music. It wasn't like that at all.

>> Steve Benson: The trouble is, the Iraqi people are nowadays are saying, Hey, we were better off pre-invasion than we are now.

>>Brian Fairrington: Some are, some are not --

>> Steve Benson: A lot of them --

>> Mike Ritter: That's another --

>> Steve Benson: Can you say "insurgency"? I think a lot of them are discontented.

>> Brian Fairrington: Well, it depends on who you talk to.

>> Mike Ritter: When you blow up a Hum-Vee and you're going to get more press than somebody that is glad they can go to the polls --

>> Michael Grant: Gay marriage, 10 states out of 11, or 11 states out of 11, what's your take on it?

>> Mike Ritter: My take on it is that people who vote against that were highly motivated as part of the fact again that the religious right is feeling their oats and this was an issue -- this was an issue since the end of the cold war that very specifically has been put out front to get those people motivated. We don't have the Soviets to fear, so it's going to be the gays, and that's one of the driving forces of bringing together this coalition that's now formed in the Republican party, and it's again the same kind of -- it appeals to the same kind of puritanical moralizing take my beliefs and put them in the force of law that brought us prohibition. I don't think this amendment will get in the constitution, but if it does, we'll have to repeal it and it's -- it's just going to be another humiliating adulteration of our constitution like prohibition was.

>> Michael Grant: Paul Revere theme --

>> Steve Benson: This had to do, of course, with the cutting edge decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court saying the state constitution doesn't allow for a structured, institutionalized discrimination and bigotry against gays and lesbians, and by the way the United States Supreme Court has refused to hear on appeal a challenge to the state court's interpretation of the Massachusetts constitution. So gay marriage is a protected right in Massachusetts. They're farsighted. Eventually, just like we had Jim Crow laws evaporate in the South, eventually these people will be forced to come kicking and screaming into the 18th century.

>> Mike Ritter: Massachusetts has the lowest divorce rates in the country as opposed to the Bible Belt, which collectively has the highest.

>> Steve Benson: 50% of marriages in the Bible Belt result in divorce.

>> Michael Grant: Brian, are you going again to the Karl Rove kind of strategic thing with this cartoon, Let's leave the war in Iraq and move over to gay marriage?

>> Brian Fairrington: The point is -- I don't think war in Iraq should have a first priority, and there was a period there when they were talking about Massachusetts and things were happening there with the gay marriage, and they wanted to drop what they were doing and go run and do that and I think that's ridiculous. I think that the gay marriage is going to be a huge disaster for the Bush administration if they try to tackle it, and to have an amendment is ridiculous.

>> Michael Grant: What do you do with an exit poll that says 22% of -- the number one category, 22% talking about moral values as the key issue for them in the election?

>> Brian Fairrington: Well, for me, I don't understand, and no one has been able to clarify it, and I consider myself a conservative, but I believe in people's rights to have their privacy and that's probably more Libertarian, but I think that -- I just don't understand how somebody getting married in San Francisco, two men getting married in San Francisco, is detrimental to heterosexual marriage here in Phoenix or Utah or anything else. No one has been able to prove that opinion.

>> Mike Ritter: There is no rational reason. It's bigotry, and bigotry is driven by fear, and unfortunately, fear is a really good campaign thing to get ahold of. I think this is going to help solidify his base. It's not going to happen, the amendment, but every time they mention it, they get more people motivated to vote Republican. Unfortunately, It's a good issue for the Bush administration.

>> Steve Benson: What's more moral than treating people under the umbrella of equal rights?

>> Mike Ritter: It's not about moral; it's about morality. It is.

>> Michael Grant: Our next is celebrity justice, a game show. Martha Stewart. Brian?

>> Brian Fairrington: The whole Martha Stewart thing is a big pet peeve of mine. I think that she shouldn't have been prosecuted. It was ridiculous. Particularly put her case against Ken Lay when he is still on the beaches in Ft. Lauderdale or Palm Beach or wherever while she's rotting away in a jail for lying to prosecutors. She shouldn't have done it, she should've paid a civil fine, but look at the subsequent costs to the employees and her stock went down, fortunately, it went back up for her. It was a ridiculous prosecution. It shouldn't have happened.

>> Steve Benson: What do you mean she shouldn't be -- first of all, she is not rotting away. She has got five months --

>> Brian Fairrington: Compared to Ken Lay -- he should be in prison for life.

>> Steve Benson: Fine. He ought to be in prison. But Martha Stewart lied under oath.

>> Brian Fairrington: She should have paid a civil penalty and gone on with it.

>> Michael Grant: I was going to say, Bill Clinton sort of cleared the deck on that.

>> Brian Fairrington: She should have paid a civil penalty and been on with it. She employees thousands of people.

>> Michael Grant: Steve, in this one, you have her -- I assume she's counting the days.

>> Steve Benson: Counting the days, oh, the pain, oh, the agony, oh, I've got five months, listening to my --

>> Mike Ritter: This is such -- it's so minimalist, but such a great caricature.

>> Steve Benson: "Minimalist" is a polite way of saying Steve can't draw.

>> Mike Ritter: No.

>> Michael Grant: Mike, you also moved to the Ken Lay theme on celebrity justice in this one.

>> Mike Ritter: I just have to say, sometimes as a cartoonist you get to draw things just because they amuse you personally, and I thought the sea gulls in "Finding Nemo" were the funniest thing I've seen on the screen in years and this was just an excuse to use that. CEO-Gulls, it's a really bad pun. It's barely a pun.

>> Michael Grant: Steve, we've got steroids. We've got baseball.

>> Steve Benson: What person with anything more than a reptilian stem for brain would believe Barry Bonds when he said, I didn't know it was anything but flaxseed. I didn't want to ask my trainer what that cream was. Barry Bonds is known for not taking anything into his body unless he knows what it is. That flaxseed, I want some of that stuff. Maybe it will buff me up.

>> Brian Fairrington: Depends on where you rub it, I guess.

>> Michael Grant: Neat play on the bat in this cartoon.

>> Mike Ritter: This was pretty simple. It's such a simple idea that more than one cartoonist came up with it.

>> Steve Benson: Did you use steroids to grow that thing below your nose?

>> Mike Ritter: That's coffee grounds.

>> Michael Grant: It looks to me like there are some cartoons that strike me as fun to draw, and this one looks like a fun one to draw. For you. I could never do it. Brian, this --

>> Mike Ritter: "Baseball been bery-bery good to me."

>> Michael Grant: Actually I was thinking of "A League of Their Own."

>> Brian Fairrington: There's no crying in baseball.

>> Michael Grant: There's no steroids in baseball. I stole that line from Steve.

>> Brian Fairrington: :The thing about this, they're -- in the last few years, they're setting all these incredible records and things like that, and they didn't do that in Babe Ruth's day, they didn't do that -- yet -- so --

>> Mike Benson: Speaking of space, earth to Brian, the fans don't care. Knock it out of the park. The owners don't care. As long as they're filling the stands and you're seeing it sail into the stratosphere, who cares if they're enhancing their performance with artificial substances.

>> Mike Ritter:
I was going to do a cartoon with like a little kid saying, Say it ain't so, Joe, but with this real like, who cares.

>> Michael Grant:
But for the purists in baseball, if they put --

>> Brian Fairrington:
That would be George Will and who else?

>> Michael Grant:
If they put an asterisk next to Roger Maris, you know, for 162 instead of 156 games, what are they going to do with Barry Bonds?

>> Steve Benson:
The former commissioner of the baseball said on NPR the other day, this is going to be a tragedy for Barry Bonds, he's not going to be on the cover of a Wheaties box. Oh, be still my heart! Is this going to be society's condemnation of Barry Bonds?

>> Mike Ritter:
I'm not interested in following baseball, anyway. Any hobby where you have to do math, I don't get that.

>> Michael Grant:
We normally close with the obituary section, and this year is no exception. Brian, your cartoon on Reagan.

>> Brian Fairrington:
Well, you know, it was a sad thing. He was the president of my youth, and so it was sad to see the gipper go, and so I had to do a cartoon. Actually this cartoon is going to be used on the front cover of Michael Reagan's new book coming out.

>> Michael Grant:
Oh, really?

>> Mike Ritter:
Congratulations.

>> Michael Grant:
Steve, you also did one?

>> Steve Benson:
Actually I did six in a row on Reagan. All the people that said you're a liberal, commie, pinko, Sandinista, they're going, what in the hell -- what in the heck, excuse me, left wing nut -- you son of obituary is what they started calling me. I think that when great statespeople die that we ought to make some --

>> Michael Grant:
There was a real outpouring by the nation here, you know?

>> Steve Benson:
He really did define the American mind set, the persona. He gave us a sense of identity and purpose, the fall of the Soviet Union --

>> Brian Fairrington:
Everything that Bush has not done.

>> Mike Ritter:
Also just the way he did carry himself. He was this -- someone you could look up to. He was a statesman. There was class there we haven't seen in the White House since. I think people to a certain extent didn't realize that until he was gone and looked back.

>> Michael Grant:
Steve, have you seen the Jamie Fox movie on Ray Charles?

>> Steve Benson:
It is a brilliant movie. Jamie Fox is dead on Ray Charles. Pardon the pun. I did an obituary on him. That is a great movie, and it was hard to believe I wasn't looking at Ray Charles.

>> Mike Ritter:
When he took off the sunglasses in that one scene, it was like, Wait, that's Jamie Fox.

>> Steve Benson:
"Thank you, Ray, for helping us see." He opposed -- he would not perform in front segregated audiences. His promoter saying, "This is going to be the death of you, we're going to sue you." But he took a stand and he really was a farsighted performer.

>> Michael Grant:
And outstanding musical talent.

>> Michael Grant:
Christopher Reeve, Mike, on yours, and -- I think we're just about toward the end.

>> Mike Ritter:
Tremendously brave man who went through, I can't imagine what, and did a great deal of good in his life in that last period. Just -- I don't think -- everyone knows, it's amazing. Great man.

>> Michael Grant:
Do the obituary cartoons sometimes pull out the very best in you? I've seen all of you --

>> Mike Ritter:
Or the worst.

>> Mike Ritter:
Or the worst. Frankly, it's a chance not to be -- perceived by readers as a complete heartless schmuck because it's a chance to show that we do -- can appreciate someone because we generally are -- we are criticizing constantly. It's once someone's dead that we can say something nice about them.

>> Steve Benson:
I got a letter from a woman out in Sun City congratulating me on an obit cartoon. She said, "But not to worry, your reputation as being mean and cold-hearted is still intact."

>> Michael Grant:
I was trying to remember one that you did. It was the empty bubble -- was that on Mel Blanc.

>> Steve Benson:
Mel Blanc, the voice for all those cartoon characters, Daffy Duck, Bugs Bunny, Michael Grant, I think did he your voice.

>> Michael Grant:
Hey, Steve Benson, thank you very much for joining us. Good year. Appreciate the retrospective.

>> Steve Benson:
Thank you, George Bush and John Kerry for...

>> Michae Grantl:
For making all this possible. Brian Fairrington, good to see you. Good year. Mike Ritter, our thanks to you as well.

>> Mike Ritter:
Thank you.

>> Michael Grant:
It was a pretty good year, Mike.

>> Mike Ritter:
Yeah. Peace out, baby.

>> Michael Grant:
We'll do this all again probably about a year from now. Thank you very much for joining us on this special edition of "Horizon." I'm Michael Grant. Hope you have a great one. Good night.

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