Jack Lew: The signature that goes 'boing'!
By Mike Peters, Special to CNN
January 13, 2013 -- Updated 0532 GMT (1332 HKT)
Mike Peters' view
Mike Peters' view
Mike Peters' view
Mike Peters' view
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- President Obama has nominated Jacob "Jack" Lew for Treasury secretary
- Treasury secretaries sign U.S. currency bills; check your dollars out
- Jack Lew's loopy signature looks like a "boing," telephone cord or maybe curly fries
Editor's note: Mike Peters is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and the creator of the award-winning and long-running comic strip "Mother Goose and Grimm."
(CNN) -- Take some bills out of your wallet. Read the signatures. What do you have?
I've got a couple of Henry Paulsons, some Robert Kimmitts and a Stuart Levey. But now, the currency of the greatest nation on Earth will carry a scribble that has been variously described as curly fries, a phone cord, a bendy straw or simply the "Boing!" sign from a comic strip.
That's the signature of Jacob "Jack" Lew, President Obama's nominee for secretary of the Treasury, and it has lit up the blogosphere.
Mike Peters
Could you read that signature without the name next to it?
Could you read that signature without the name next to it?
Slinky as signature: What does it mean?
So instead of going crazy because the Cabinet is in sore need of a binder full of women, what the "boing" is going to do to our money is the big deal.
I know a guy who is a great artist, and his signature is mainly a straight line interrupted by a bump in the middle, which could have been caused by someone accidentally hitting the table. But he is an artist and can do what he wants.
I also know people who have had their 1040 tax returns rejected by the IRS for a boing-style signature.
Is it possible that our Treasury secretary could have his tax returns go awry because of his penmanship? Could the Chinese start rejecting the almighty dollar because they think the boing looks too weird? Or could his signature mean something else in Chinese, like "We will bury you" or "This is Monopoly money"?
Jack Lew is a Harvard-Georgetown, really smart type of guy, and God knows we probably owe him a lot. He's been a good chief of staff in just keeping the birthers out of the Oval Office so Obama could govern.
But please, Mr. Lew, retire the boing. After all, "Lew" is only three letters long.
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The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Mike Peters.
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