Comedians, artists and certainly political cartoonists tend to possess an anti-authoritarian, skeptical, irreverent streak. This makes the staunchly conservative cartoonist an especially odd bird.

Rightwing Cartoon Watch seeks to highlight far right cartoons, but also document the broader range of opinion from conservative cartoonists on the hot issues of a given week. While a primary goal is to challenge GOP talking points and fallacies, we also seek to celebrate the fine American tradition of editorial cartooning - and have a little fun in the process.

Which cartoonists dare to criticize their own party? Who seems to literally illustrate GOP talking points? Who are their favorite targets? Who mocks liberals - and who seems to truly hate them? Who’s funny? Who’s independently minded and who’s a hack? Read, and decide, for yourself!

In this installment, covering two weeks (4/30/07 - 5/13/07), conservative cartoonists ranged all over the map in terms of subject matter. Iraq experienced a, err, surge in popularity again. George Tenet received some ridicule. Meanwhile, conservatives also noted the impending resignation of a Brit they loved and celebrated - the French?!?

IRAQ

Michael Ramirez shows his usual visual flair, but the Nero analogy doesn’t really work. It’s not as if the Iraqi government has much power separate from the U.S. military or Maliki has much clout without the backing of the Sadr militia.

Ramirez also tries to suggest that Congress isn’t supporting the troops. Garry Trudeau dispensed with this silliness just last week with a week-long series starting with this 5-7-07 strip.

Lisa Benson tries a similar tact. This is a decent gag, but the troops aren’t in danger of no funding. The choices are really whether they’re coming home or will continue to occupy Iraq during its civil war.

Lisa Benson evokes the fallen freeway up in the San Francisco Bay area for this piece. She ignores that many Republicans signed on to the same bill, that Bush’s “plan,” such as it is, ain’t really leading anywhere, and that the Democrats knew the bill would be vetoed.

Since Paul Nowak must also know that Dems knew the bill would be vetoed, and that his assertion is BS, it seems he’s expressing his typical aggression toward Democrats more than anything else. (Of course, hacks reflexively hack.)

Scott Stantis delivers a cartoon that bemoans the situation of both American troops and Republican members of Congress.

Eric Allie attacks the Democrats with one of his favorite charges.

He also tries, as many conservatives do, to claim that bin Laden is happy about the Democrats being in charge of Congress. Sigh. Common sense as well as intelligence reports tell us (as we’ve been over countless times before) that Al Qaeda has no better friend for recruitment than George W. Bush and his invasion of Iraq.

Chuck Asay peddles a similar BS line. Al Qaeda will not take over Iraq, not all Iraqis feel all warm and fuzzy about Al Qaeda, and some major news outlets are reporting that Al Qaeda’s support in Iraq is further fracturing or diminishing. Let’s remember that Al Qaeda is a Sunni group and the majority of Iraqis are Shiite. (Militants on both sides can agree on killing Americans, however, as long as we’re there.)

As we’ve mentioned many times, conventional standards of victory and defeat haven’t applied in Iraq for some time, probably years. We’re not in a traditional war; we’re occupying a foreign land in the midst of a civil war. Iraq policy should not be determined by Bush’s ego or trying to save his already catastrophic legacy.

Chip Bok really delves into the gutter in a complete hack move worthy of “Most Offensive” consideration. Harry Reid never said the troops were losers. Bok has shown he isn’t stupid, but normally he’s not this big of a hack. This cartoon literally illustrates a GOP talking point, smacked down here by Barbara Boxer.

Bob Gorrell uses a line many political observers have been uttering for the past several years. But where’s Gorrell’s heart really at? Here, he dares to criticize Bush…

…While here, he peddles the same BS as Eric Allie above! In fact, Gorrell has drawn many cartoons asserting this same falsehood!

Michael Ramirez at least shows some cleverness in making his favorite charge against Democrats…

…Whereas here, his set-up and punchline are sadly predictable.

Furthermore, it’s inaccurate. If the folks who Ramirez considered “radical extremists” had really taken over the party, Gonzales, Cheney and Bush would all probably be impeached already and a bill to cut all war funding and institute an immediate withdrawal would be on the Hill. That’s not to mention that roughly 70% of Americans don’t support Bush and his Iraq policy. Ramirez’s “radical extremists” include many centrist Democrats, independents, and moderate Republicans! It’s pretty much only the far-right hawks and diehard authoritarian conservatives - including Ramirez - who still support Bush’s policy.

Lisa Benson’s cartoon is fairly clever, but I find it interesting because of the subtle revisionist angle. We didn’t invade Iraq to foster democracy. As we covered in a previous installment, James Fallows has shown that 18 of the 19 paragraphs in Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech were about WMD and Iraq as a threat, not about freedom and democracy.

Henry Payne uses the freeway collapse (as Lisa Benson did above) to push a similar line about “democracy.” Payne and Benson at least both acknowledge problems (although the Benson egg cartoon is much more on target than her freeway one).

Normally, I would put this cartoon in with the Democratic Presidential Candidates category, but the revisionism angle made me include it here. It’s a disingenuous attack from Allie, if more clever with its BS than his usual fare. We didn’t invade to foster democracy.

(I’ll add that while I’m not a huge fan of Hillary Clinton, I’m not obssessed about her “apologizing” for her vote. She’s repeatedly said if she knew what she knew now then, she wouldn’t have voted that way. That’s pretty much the same for me.

A more accurate criticism of her, I think, is why did she feel that way? Many of us average citizens were capable of seeing that Bush’s case for war was BS and that he and his adminstration wanted to go to war, why didn’t she? It’s hard to miss that most Democratic presidential hopefuls voted for the AUMF, and at least some (Edwards) cast a bad vote because they thought it would help them politically later down the line.

Of course, that’s not to mention the Republicans, who had power then. While some politicians were surely calculating and craven, perhaps some were just stupid.)

New research shows that Al Qaeda has probably grown stronger thanks to Bush. Ken Catalino gets some credit for noticing, although he shies away from assigning blame. Hey Allie and Gorrell, did you see this cartoon? Where is bin Laden, anyway?

GEORGE TENET

Payne slams Tenet. I had some sympathy for Tenet after reading Ron Suskind’s The One Percent Doctrine, but it was hard to have much after seeing his 60 Minutes interview. Tenet loved his people at the CIA, and was very loyal to them, as they were to him. He worked long hours, and the initial CIA work in Afghanistan was by some accounts superb. However, his judgment was obviously flawed in many instances, most of all in his relationship with Bush, for whom (as Suskind reports) he would do anything. One of Condoleezza Rice’s relatives said that Rice’s problem was that she “just could not say no to that man,” meaning Bush. Tenet was and is the same way. How could Tenet meet with Bush almost every day in 2001 and not tell him, we need to pursue this Al Qaeda threat against America? He and Powell both should have resigned in protest.

What’s most unusual about this Asay cartoon is that it indirectly swipes Bush, too. However, as Tenet said, it’s not as if Cheney needed to hear “slam dunk” to go into Iraq! Paul O’Neill said that one of the first cabinet meetings the Bush administration ever held centered on Iraq and possibly attacking it. Bob Somerby has also written a fair amount about this; by the time of “slam dunk,” Bush and Cheney had already set the wheels in motion. Somerby quotes Tenet:

this now-famous ["slam dunk"] meeting took place “four months after the vice president’s Veterans of Foreign Wars speech in which he said there was A-no doubt- that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction.”

There’s plenty more where that came from. 9/11 was an excuse, not the cause (and a stupid if effective excuse at that).

I’m not going to defend Tenet’s angry defense that what-we-do-isn’t-torture-but-we’re-justified-anyway.

QUEEN ELIZABETH II VISITS

Chip Bok mocks Bush’s social inappropriateness (evoking the German incident)…

…While Glenn McCoy mocks Bush’s command of the English language. (It’s rare for McCoy to poke fun at Bush, although this is awfully tame.)

TONY BLAIR STEPPING DOWN

Speaking of Brits, Blair’s Iraq legacy will certainly dog him. This cartoon could be taken at least two ways, but based on his previous cartoons, it doesn’t seem Stantis is a dead-ender.

Speaking of people who “can’t say no to that man,” it seems Blair’s downfall was in large part honoring a promise to Bush. Most accounts report that Blair told Bush that the U.K. would support war if and only if Bush went to the United Nations first. Because Bush attacked before the inspectors had finished their job, and because they had found nothing to date, Bush acted in bad faith with Blair. Blair was in a tough bind, but given Bush’s breach he should have told Bush to shove it.

A few things I’ll say in favor of Blair, though. He genuinely cares about fighting poverty, starvation and ending human suffering where possible. Thanks in large part to the British parliamentary system, Blair faced his critics and argued with them in public, making his case, rather than following the Bush model of pretending to be a straightshooter while hiding from the press and refusing to answer direct questions directly. Finally, Blair was articulate and at times passionate. I still hold that he was wrong, but there were times (only some times, mind you) when he made an honest case for war. The same cannot be said of the Bush administration. I also think that Blair might be capable of being swayed by reason, whereas again, the same cannot be said of the Bush administration. Finally, left to his own devices, or if he were somehow the President of the Unites States, I doubt Blair would have started the war, whereas the same… you know. (I’m sure Brits can give a much longer list of Blair’s faults, though!)

THE FORT DIX PLOT

Well, I suppose Bok gets credit for working in a classical reference.

Holbert’s cartoon is well designed, but this Opinion Mill post (via Mike’s Blog Roundup) considers a New York Times article that raises troubling aspects about the Fort Dix plot. Just as with the Miami Sons of David and an FBI arrest of a “terrorist” out in California, the FBI informant apparently was the same one who was driving the plot. I’m all for catching actual terrorists, but I find such behavior troubling and a waste of resources.

Does anyone have any idea of what Paul Nowak’s referring to specifically with the “Al Qaeda affiliate,” if anything? It seems this is just another of his knee-jerk attacks.

Apparently, the press isn’t bigoted enough for Nowak’s tastes. Or is he claiming they’re not thorough? If anything, the media under-reports the violence in Iraq, and don’t do a thorough enough job of challenging officially’sanctioned BS, but that’s not what Nowak’s asking for. His real complaint has been that they’re not partisan and xenophobic enough - Nowak consistently draws cartoons that insist that the media should cheerlead, not report. To him, they should ceaselessly sound the alarm over the threats posed to America by Islamic extremists - because, umm, none of us were aware of that before, and we might… forget, or something. Plus, if you’re not in a constant state of shit-yer-pants hysteria, the Democrats, I mean, the terrorists win! Vote for Fear and the GOP in 2008!

What’s most obnoxious about Nowak here is his suggestion that the American media doesn’t care about the troops and is blasé about their deaths. For Nowak, the problem has been that the media show insufficient fervor in denouncing his demons du jour. I’m torn as to whether this cartoon or one by Nowak further down is more Islamophobic.

THE D.C. MADAM

Lisa Benson presents a nice design.

Jerry Holbert gets my vote for Most (Aesthetically) Repulsive Cartoon of the Week!

Meanwhile, Gary Varvel once again shows he’s willing to criticize corrupt and hypocritical Republicans. Bravo, Gary!

THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

Glenn McCoy is apparently no fan of McCain. Attendance issues, I guess. (Tip of the iceberg, I’d say!)

Meanwhile, Nowak depicts the groundswell of support for Fred Thompson. This isn’t a bad cartoon since it accurately captures the mood of some Republicans, and Fred Thompson might well join the race. (Meanwhile, Thompson might want to study what the rule of law is. Hint: it requires having actual principles, not being a partisan hack or selling a fake populist image.)

Varvel also captures the GOP mood very well. Still, while Reagan was apparently quite a nice fellow on a personal level, I’d argue he severely hurt our country in many ways, especially in terms of our budget and wealth distribution (not to mention his refusal to even mention AIDS for years, saying trees caused pollution, trying to classify ketchup and relish as vegetables to skimp on school lunches for kids, his attempts to abolish the National Endowment for the Arts, his role in the Iran-Contra scandal, and having Alzheimer while in office). And no, he didn’t “win” the Cold War! However, Saint Ronnie will always be so for the GOP. Still, I have to side with Digby’s statement prior to the first debate for Republican presidential candidates:

In anticipation of the big GOP Reagan fest today, I’ve donned my Flock of Seagulls t’shirt and rented Rambo to get into the mood. Yes, I’m old enough to remember Reagan. But I was out of the country as much as possible, so the Reagan years seem to me to be a vague pastiche of exotic beverages and very, very large shoulder pads. It was quite a long time ago, after all.

It’s somewhat telling that Republicans have to go back a quarter century to find idols they can sell considering they owned the congress for the past 12 years and the presidency for the past six, but there you have it. If they have to dredge up the past if I were them, I think they should turn to Ike. He really did help save the world and they even named a smashing jacket after him. He’s certainly as relevant as Reagan is to today’s issues.

Ah, but Ike would urge listening to experts and a process of sane, rational decision-making!

I’ll also recommend Rick Perlstein’s piece “The Reagan Legacy” which debunks several Reagan myths pushed by the GOP.

(I should add I never owned a Flock of Seagulls t’shirt.)

Varvel also delivers this fine cartoon that deserves its own, later post (as perhaps Reagan does).

THE DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES

This is pretty standard editorial cartoon fare from Ken Catalino. However, it suggests falsely that there’s no basis for bashing Bush.

I don’t think we need to debunk the same bullshit in detail three times in the same installment. Osama bin Laden is for Bush and anyone stupid enough to follow in his footsteps. For shame, Lisa Benson.

Glenn McCoy tries to assert that there’s nothing to Obama. I have my concerns about Obama, but he’s got a hell of a lot more substance than Bush and most of the GOP candidates. Plus, by all accounts Obama wrote his own book and can actually string together a coherent sentence. That alone would be a marked improvement!

TIME MAGAZINE

Ramirez overplays his hand here. Of course Time magazine is known, and people are well aware it’s still in business. However, as I’ve argued elsewhere, it’s a bourgeois rag. It’s just silly not to list Bush on their silly little list (and it shows what a silly little list it is). It’s even sillier for other media outlets to seize on the story as if Time magazine’s judgment really matters for much. Perhaps it was a slow news day. I wish Bush wasn’t one of the most influential people in the world, but as one of the most powerful, of course he is. Time’s move smacks more of a publicity stunt than journalism.

Not that I’m shilling for Time, but it’s doing a hell of a lot better than loss leaders such as Weekly Standard and National Review!

Umm, no. Again, Time is not liberal. It is bourgeois. It occasionally features good articles, but overall it’s represents Beltway conventional wisdom. It’s David Broder pitched at an eighth-grade reading level.

THE ENVIRONMENT

Does Asay really believe the crap he spouts? America’s energy consumption is just fine, it’s just the ‘politically correct liberal media’ that’s distorting things? The media is apparently so powerful even John McCain has fallen under its spell, but soothsayer Asay is here to tell us the truth!

According to the Energy Information Administration, a division of the U.S. Department of Energy, in 2004 (the most recent year for which there’s complete data), the United States accounted for 27% of world energy consumption. According to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau info (on 5/16/07), Americans account for 4.6% of the world’s population. American consumption and population percentages have fallen in those general ranges for decades. If we caused no pollution or environmental harm from all that activity, it would be one thing, but given all the stats, I’d say concern is legitimate, wouldn’t you, Chuck Asay?

Oh, good grief. Yeah, ya better use a compact fluorescent bulb or you’ll lose your job. There’s a decent gag to be had here, but Asay’s persecution fantasies really kill the presentation and execution for me.

(I should add that while CFLs are better than traditional fluorescents, giving less headaches and giving less spikey, uneven, and unnatural light, I still don’t like them aesthetically. Many companies have used them for years because they’re cheaper. That’s their right. However, state-mandated bans on incandescent bulbs, such as the one Arnold Schwarzenegger favors, seem overly intrusive to me (Conan O’Brian has joked the real reason for Arnold’s proposal is that he can’t say “incandescent”). Some manufacturers have argued they can make more energy efficient incandescent bulbs, which sounds like a worthy goal, and one they should be able to pursue. If mandates are to supplant the free market approach here, setting energy requirements makes more sense than banning certain bulbs. I know mandating CFLs is a crusade for some people, and I’m happy to read more information, but there are other environmental causes that seem far more pressing to me.)

GAS PRICES AND THE ECONOMY

Speaking of energy consumption… Given that most projections state that ANWR doesn’t hold that much oil compared to our use rate, it seems Republicans want to drill there more to assert that they can or for another corporate handout rather than it being part of a sensible energy policy. “Exploration” isn’t banned per se, it’s certain areas that are restricted. Allie’s casting of villains and victims here is unintentionally hilarious. Those evil Dems! We all know we should feel sorry for those poor oil executives, whose companies are in such utterly dire straits. In fact, we should give them some more huge federal handouts. After all, as President Al Gore said, “If it were the other way around, you know the oil companies would help us.”

More Iraq invasion revisionism! Now we invaded for oil! While that’s certainly part of the truth, and the Bush administration has argued this line publicly since, they sure as hell did not sell this as a prime reason beforehand. Yeah, Asay, all Americans care about is cheap gas. That’s why American troops should continue to die. And Americans hate going “green,” too, I guess. Besides, how is our presence in Iraq keeping down the price of oil? Isn’t present production still not up to pre-war levels? Was Iraq under Saddam Hussein really one of America’s chief suppliers? It seems Asay’s trying to posit some stupid domino effect theory of the Middle East again here, as do the Bushies, but it doesn’t hold up. You can tell they’re grasping at straws when they throw this crap out. Out here in California, the gas prices are some of the highest in the nation. They’ve gotten much worse since we invaded. Asay’s argument seems to be, sure, things have gotten worse than they used to be, but potentially they could get even worse - if we don’t follow Bush’s stellar leadership and more brilliant neocon schemes!

Mike Shelton’s stocks cartoon is original and funny.

Meanwhile, Shelton is one of the few conservatives to acknowledge that a resurgent Wall Street doesn’t automatically mean that everyone in the economy is doing great as well.

I’m torn about this cartoon. I’m impressed Mike Lester actually expresses sympathy for the poor, which is not exactly a common conservative trait. However, he seems to be doing so mainly as a way to bash immigrants. Any other readings? How about instead targeting our tax code system, opposition to the minimum wage, outsourcing, corporation policies, and the Bush administration’s entire domestic agenda? These are issues worthy of their own posts.

THE DAMNED MEDIA

I’m not going to disagree that a great deal of media coverage is shallow. (That said, Fox News loves issuing a “News Alerts” over every threat, no matter baseless. If the world were ending, I magine they’d put Geraldo on camera non’stop.)

Holbert cleverly links Fox’s best program with Fox owner Rupert Murdoch’s attempt to take over the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones.

Here’s the other Nowak cartoon I was speaking about. Is this one more Islamophobic than the earlier one? Nowak is often unspecific with his attacks. Here, he seems to be arguing that media is “politically correct” and tries to excuse violence when it’s perpetrated by Muslim or Arabs, but smacks down violence when it’s perpetrated by white bigots. Naughty media! I can only take this as further proof that Nowak does not actually read newspapers and gets all his information from Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.

OTHER

This is an unusually large category this week, as they were many one-offs that seemed to deserve inclusion…

Gary Varvel offers a good cartoon, both on the cost of college and the important privacy issues raised by the “internets.”

I have to agree with Lisa Benson that Suicide Bomber Mickey looks creepy. The story of Palestinian Mickey she’s referencing is pretty bizarre as well.

This somewhat disturbing Stantis cartoon comes in late on the VT gun debate. Of course anti-gun laws will not prevent a crazy person from violating them. That’s not a compelling, sufficient rationale for allowing guns in classrooms and on school campuses, but we went over much of this in our previous installment.

This Mike Shelton cartoon is also late to the party, but I found it tasteless enough to warrant inclusion.

I’m not sure Asay can go one week without making a straw man argument. To the best of my knowledge, no one called Imus a Nazi, least of all Soros and MoveOn.org! Liberals are also not blind to the threat of terrorists. Asay also offers a false choice here, that one can only focus on one issue at the time. That’s not to mention that I wasn’t aware that activist groups in America had any control over the media in foreign countries. Hmm. I swear, conservatives consistently argue that if someone isn’t constantly shitting their pants about Islamic militants or denouncing them, that person is not taking national security seriously. Unbridled paranoia in defiance of actual facts does not help make good foreign policy. What’s funny is that Asay at times argues that Dems are cowards and scared of Islamic militants, yet here he accuses them of not being sufficiently scared. Which is it? Asay does have educational value in that he consistently employs classic logical fallacies (the latest Republican presidential candidate debate featured many, but that’s a subject for its own post).

I was surprised by how many conservative cartoonists drew a cartoon about the French elections, but they were awfully repetitive (several used a “freedom fries” angle). I thought this Benson entry featured the best design of the lot. As others have noted, how bad must it be if conservatives are suddenly praising their eternal punching bag, France?!?

Also using The Statue of Liberty is Michael Ramirez, who apparently doesn’t think that much of current U.S. immigration policy!

If someone is incompetent, you know that Bush will back him or her to the bitter end. In the case of Gonzales, he’s a useful stonewall for Bush, Rove and the rest. In the case of Wolfowitz, Bush and Cheney love the guy, but it also seems to be a case of them insisting on getting their way. This cartoon could be taken at least two ways, but I don’t think Bok is cheering this behavior.

I find this Bok cartoon one of the most offensive of the week. Jim Swanson covered this story in one of his podcasts. I’ve listened to the audio of the Kent State incident, and I can’t clearly make out the order that Alan Canfora claims is there. However, “Get a life!” can only be meant to refer to the Kent State students, Canfora (who was wounded in the incident), or both. Good lord, Chip Bok, four college students died. They were shot. National guardsmen opened fire on their fellow Americans. Regardless of the audio, there are some fishy aspects to the official investigation. Regardless of the audio, I can’t say that wanting to get the truth about that horrible incident, and wanting to find out why four college students were killed, is unworthy of anyone’s time. Some fine compassionate conservatism here.

Ken Catalino delivers a good cartoon on the tainted pet food story.

It is interesting that Pearl Harbor can be used as the basis of a gag now, whereas 60 years ago I doubt it could. It’s like the old line about comedy equaling tragedy plus time. (”Besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”) I suppose if we’re being literal here, Toyota has not “attacked” the U.S. or GM per se, and GM’s poor management and development have played a major role here, so the metaphor doesn’t hold up to much scrutiny, but then, it’s just a gag.

Gary McCoy joins Paul Nowak in the blanket, flailing attack built on flimsy if not false premises. McCoy seems to be arguing that other celebrities spend excessively, or that Sheryl Crow does, so she’s a hypocrite. Uh, okay. Care to cite any specific hypocrisy by Crow? No? Didn’t think so. (I find it hard to consider Gary McCoy’s work for “most offensive,” although in the “most pathetic and inept attack” category he’s a perennial contender.)

Wow! Glenn McCoy criticizes the Pentagon for their lies about Pat Tillman!

Wait a second - doesn’t he know that criticizing the military (which in this case involves criticizing both Rumsfeld and Bush, since they were informed, not that he’s picturing them) emboldens Al Qaeda? Why does McCoy not support the troops?

I’ve heard Sharpton’s statement, which was: “As for the one Mormon running for office, those who really believe in God will defeat him anyways, so don’t worry about that; that’s a temporary situation.” Even taken in context, which was debating Christopher Hitchens about the existence of god, my first reaction was, “Wait a minute. Is he saying that Mormonism is a false religion?” Sharpton denies this, and his statement is reported by The Washington Post here:

“What I said was that we would defeat him, meaning as a Republican,” Sharpton said. “A Mormon, by definition, believes in God. They don’t believe in God the way I do, but by definition, they believe in God.”

He said he was contrasting himself and other believers with Hitchens, who is the author of a new book, “God Is Not Great.”

Sharpton’s assertion would be that “those who really believe in God” in this context refers to liberals or something similar and those who will be defeated are Republicans, not Mormons. Okay. Honestly, I’m not sure I competely buy that, but that is a fair interpretation, and there’s absolutely no doubt that in the debate Sharpton was defending faith in general and suggesting that the civil rights movement, which Republicans largely opposed, was significantly inspired and fueled by people with strong religious beliefs. My question regarding Sharpton would be whether he had a history of statements that are clearly bigoted towards other denominations, and whether he makes future statements that are. Those questions are fair to raise, but there’s no doubt in my mind that Glenn McCoy doesn’t care about accurate answers. He’s just trying to slam one of his favorite targets, Al Sharpton, just as he disingenuously accused John Kerry of deliberately insulting the troops just before the 2006 midterm elections.

Virginia Tech students made a memorial of stones for all the VT shooting victims. They also included a stone for Cho. The Cho stone was stolen. Personally, I’m not sure Cho warrants inclusion, but it was a compassionate gesture by the VT students. The bigger issue, however, is regardless of my personal feelings, it’s not my call. This is the VT memorial, by VT and for VT. Leave them be. (Hmm. I wonder if Lester is a Christian? That would make his attitude here very striking.)

What a shock that Nowak is peddling BS about hate crime legislation. I have mixed feelings about this legislation myself, for many of the reasons detailed in the thread I’ve linked, and the subject does warrant serious discussion. However, Paul Nowak is not really offering that, and it cracks me up that he of all people is squawking about the “thought police.” He’s arguing a slippery slope here. Whether the bill is good or not, it explictly refuses to criminalize hate speech. Such a law (criminalizing hate speech) would be unconstitutional and could not possibly stand up to a challenge, nor could any similar law. As we’ve documented in RWCW, Nowak is a propagandist, consistently making disingenuous arguments and misrepresenting who and what he opposes. It’s not as if Nowak’s ever been a force for honesty, civility or intelligent debate. He’s a partisan hack. The man who drew this cartoon, favors profiling of Muslims and Arabs, supports warrantless eavesdropping, domestic spying and by all appearances the full Bush administration line (including a systematic rejection of the rule of law) doesn’t have a whole lot of credibility charging anyone else with being Orwellian. Nowak demonizes those who think differently than he does. Who’s the “thought police”? None of this means he can’t once in a while stumble onto an idea of some actual slight merit by sheer accident, but what’s that old expression about rabidly partisan, xenophobic, bullshitting smear merchants and glass houses?

Nowak fares a little better here.

A bizarre cartoon by Holbert for a crazy state.

LOCAL/NON-POLITICAL

This is a cute cartoon. (Still, I have to wonder, does anyone actually know someone with a heart’shaped tattoo saying “mom”? It’s such a cliché, it seems it’d have to be at least somewhat ironic.)

Henry Payne also delivers this cartoon for Mother’s Day.

BONUS COMIC STRIP SECTION

Several folks have mentioned the strip Mallard Fillmore and in the comments for the previous installment, reader Mysterio mentioned State of the Union. Well, here ya go!

I guess cartoonist Bruce Tinsely doesn’t read the papers. News exonerating the lacrosse players trickled out over months versus a single splash, but there were plenty of headlines and in-depth features on it as well. Ever hear of a show called 60 Minutes?

Yeah, sure, that’s the problem. Clearly all teachers and students should be packing heat in case of a very low probability occurence, and campus deaths and injuries would not possibly go up as a result of schools allowing firearms, which have absolutely no role in education (apart from weapons training). This duck is as lame and dumb as Bush.

Meanwhile, this cartoon is just dumb and unfunny. Seriously, ain’t it painful?

What’s also amusing is that Bruce Tinsely consistently attacks Ted Kennedy, often over Chappaquiddick and drinking, yet was arrested for public intoxication. One would think that conservatives would stop leveling hypocrisy charges against others out of sheer shame over the prevalence of hypocrisy by their side, but… nawh.

Over to State of the Union. Okay, I find this cartoon offensively obtuse. I recently heard someone on NPR argue that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars/occupations were still much cheaper than WWII, Korea, and Vietnam as well. That’s not the point. Iraq was a war of choice. Any cost of money, resources and human lives is far too much for that. That’s not to mention all the Iraqi civilians killed since our invasion. (Also, the percentage of troops who die compared to those who are wounded is much smaller nowadays thanks to improved medical care, so the death toll doesn’t tell the whole story.) If we’re going to make comparisons to WWII, FDR and Truman had won WWII in a shorter time than we’ve been in Iraq. American G.I.s in Germany and Japan were not getting killed during their occupations of those countries. We also planned our reconstructions of those countries, and while we may have earned some emnity, we also earned plenty of lifelong friends on the individual and state level. One further note - we had a draft in WWII and Vietnam, and during WWII citizens were asked to sacrifice on the home front. Instead, Bush has told us to go out and spend. (In terms of spending recklessly, with money, resources and lives, he’s certainly set a fine example.)

Here, cartoonist Carl Moore seems really confused about his symbolism. I suppose we could look at this brave Republican (note that only Republicans are striving for Iraq) as fighting off defeat, which threatens to crush him. However, if the goal is to for the elephant to push the boulder up the mountain, as traditional symbolism would have it, then then boulder should really say “Success in Iraq” or “Peace in Iraq” or something. The charge that the media is undercutting efforts in Iraq is inaccurate partisan hackery, reminiscient of the U.S. military’s insane belief (if understandable rationalization) that the press made them lose the Vietnam war. It’s not as if things have been going great in Iraq, or that all the press has even been covering exactly how bad it is, since we rarely see dead bodies in the paper or on TV. But back to Carl Moore’s symbolism. Not surprisingly, when I look at this cartoon I see the Greek myth of Sisyphus (one of the myths I found most striking as a kid). In some accounts, King Sisyphus was a brilliant man who sacrificed all for love of his wife and the good of his people. He toiled for eternity in Hades pushing a boulder up a hill that would slip down again when he got close to completion. Bush with Iraq is like Sisyphus in the never-ending cycle of attempts, but unlike Sisyphus, he’s obviously not brilliant and could stop at any time. Only an idiot would choose such a path (see Gorrell’s insanity cartoon earlier). Also, unlike Sisyphus, Bush is not suffering, and did not act for the good of the people. If one’s feeling charitable, one could argue he thought he was. If one’s feeling charitable, one could argue Bush isn’t dumb, either, but I think he’s clearly not smart enough for the job, and that given the willful, proud nature of his ignorance and his love of his bubble, his obtuseness is clearly a choice. His functional stupidity is therefore not merely a lack of intelligence but a deep, fatal character flaw. The crucial elements are that Bush has chosen this task, but others must exert the effort and others suffer and die as a result. (Whether Bush will face divine punishment like Sisyphus, who knows.)

Ha. All of this has taken us a bit afield, but Carl Moore misses the mark and would be better off reading some good newspapers (plus perhaps some Camus) and getting back to us.

As to the question Why Are Conservative Comic Strips Never as Funny as Liberal Comic Strips?, prompted for one blogger by State of the Union, I believe RWCW has consistently answered that one. (There are some funny conservatives, obviously, but if you don’t believe that unfunny conservatives are the trend, check out this clip. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.)

As usual, feel free to vote for the most offensive cartoon(s) of this installment in the comments, and check out Bob Geiger’s most recent round-up of editorial cartoons for a palate cleanser. See you next time!