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.

Right-Wing 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, conservatives hailed their new hero, excoriated one of their favorite old foes, manufactured some fresh slanders, recycled many lame ones, and commemorated a dreadful event.

 

IRAQ AND PETRAEUS’ TESTIMONY

This Henry Payne elegantly makes its point, but it’s be much more accurate to say the glass is nine-tenths empty and one-tenth full.

I’m willing to accept that Petraeus is a fine soldier, certainly one of the American generals who best understands counter-insurgency. None of that means his evaluation of Iraq is correct, however, and as a general rule, even the most capable people should not be asked to evaluate themselves on matters of such importance. Additionally, his past assessments have proven to be far from accurate.

As those following the news know, Iraq is in horrible straits, and any “progress” is limited in both scope and location. As Dan Froomkin reported back on 8/24/07, “A new national intelligence estimate concludes that President Bush’s troop surge shows no signs of accomplishing its goal of encouraging political reconciliation in Iraq.”

(That’s not to mention the unsettling Westmoreland similarities.)

Again, Glenn McCoy clearly makes his point - but it’s utter crap. I guess it’s easier to believe Petraeus is telling the unvarnished truth if you don’t read legitimate newspapers. In this cartoon, McCoy also necessarily implies that Bush both can handle the truth, and is telling the truth.

Who can we turn to for another round of debunks? Hmm, how about MoveOn and the 16 links they provide?

Sigh. Gorrell loves clichés more than any other conservative cartoonist. If taken literally, this is a straw man argument, since no Democrat has said there was no progress anywhere in Iraq. As for Anbar, its “progress” predated the “surge,” and closer inspection yields serious concerns.

Still, the larger question is whether Iraq as a whole is any closer to a political reconciliation, and no amount of military can achieve that. Sadly, that sort of reconciliation is also nowhere in sight. But as Glenn Greenwald damningly shows, Fred Hiatt and other Washington hawks will continue to blather:

This is how it goes endlessly with people like Hiatt: (1) If X does not happen, there is no justification for staying; (2) X has not happened; (3) we must stay. That is why nothing they say has any meaning. Staying in Iraq is always the only real goal. Everything else is just pretext and blather to continue to do that.

Perhaps it’s cognitive dissonance, the desperation of trying to salvage what in a just world would be a shattered reputaton, simple hackdom, or a pathological aversion to acknowledging the suffering caused by war. Regardless, Hiatt and his numerous ilk in the chattering class were wrong in 2002, they’re still wrong now, and their anxious need to enable Bush’s obstinate dysfunction is dangerous.

Yes, kiddies, remember, Congress is the enemy. Even though Bush has called all the shots exactly as he’s wanted for over four years, it’s the newly elected Democratic majority that has somehow retroactively stymied his magnificence. As he often does, Michael Ramirez delivers fine artwork but a predictable joke.

As to the Pentagon’s numbers, they are deliberately misleading. As Ilan Goldenberg recapped it: “The violence numbers do not include: 1) Sunni on Sunni violence. 2) Shi-a on Shi-a violence 3) Car bombs 4) Getting shot in the front of the head.”

Unlike the Pentagon, Petraeus’ numbers actually did touch on car bombs, but his numbers were still misleading. For instance, he didn’t provide a larger context by volunteering data about “ethnic cleansing” or refugees. Some neighborhoods are now more peaceful because the ethnic minority has been killed or has fled. And as Hilzoy highlights, “An estimated 4.2 million Iraqis are have been uprooted from their homes, with the monthly rate of displacement climbing to over 60,000 people compared to 50,000 previously.” Why didn’t “straight’shooter” Petraeus volunteer any of that?

This cartoon is pretty offensive, especially given the amazingly delusional and/or deceptive speech delivered by Bush last Thursday and the dog-and-pony show of Petraeus. Barbara Boxer deserves ribbing for not being able to ask a single question in seven minutes. However, Congress and many others had (and still have) plenty of very important questions to ask about Iraq. At a financial cost of 2 to 3 billion per week, and an ever-mounting death toll for Americans and Iraqis, it’s more than fair to ask that Congress not be inane, but they damn well deserve to be answered, and not with distorted figures.

Sorry, Eric Allie, Petraeus’ credibility is far from solid. Nevermind that the wildly over-optimistic op-ed he wrote for the pro-war Washington Post claiming the occupation in Iraq was succeeding back in October 2004, right before the presidential election. Nevermind that Petraeus is no political naif and reportedly has political aspirations of his own. Nevermind his meetings at the White House with Ed Gillespie, Bush’s political counselor. As the Daily Howler shows, reporters have repeatedly called Petraeus a “straight’shooter” at the same time they’re related how Petraeus has not been fully honest with them. It’s not as if his congressional testimony was an aberration.

Sending Petraeus to Congress while the White House wrote the actual report was always theater to let Bush hide behind the military and try to leech off some respect. As Dan Froomkin notes:

It has been a key part of Bush’s political genius to hide behind people in uniform. Although Petraeus is in every way a political figure at this point, there’s something about that uniform that makes some people really uncomfortable with a personal attack. The ultimate irony here is how badly Bush has treated his own generals, once they were of no use to him. (But he didn’t call them bad names.) See my July 16 column, How Bush Uses His Generals.

In Eric Allie’s world, working to prevent troops from being killed shows a lack of support.

Lisa Benson thinks MoveOn dwells in the gutter. Okay. But how does she move from that to death? That’s far more hyperbolic than anything MoveOn wrote!

I thought the MoveOn ad was a bit sophomoric in its language, and knew that angle would be seized on by critics. However, let’s get real. MoveOn would have been criticized regardless of the language it used. It’s not as if Bush hasn’t listened to reason just because people haven’t been polite enough. Bush also created the partisan atmosphere we have now, and he constantly perpetuates it. Meanwhile, very sharp people such as George Lakoff argue that highlighting the “betrayal of trust” is very important (it certainly applies to the Bush administration itself). The most important point is that, regardless of any style issues, MoveOn was right on the substance and supported all of their assertions on their website.

Nevertheless, Richard Cohen exemplified everything that is wrong with our press corps in his response. He condemned Hillary Clinton for not condemning MoveOn, yet never bothered to consider at all whether there was any substance to their charges. (In the same column, he also applied a different standard to a Republican, Giuliani, and brought up Whitewater as a past “scandal” of Clinton’s without bothering to note the Clintons were never found guilty of wrongdoing. Oh, and Cohen is supposedly a liberal.)

For more good critiques of this silliness, check out Digby, Arriana Huffington, Glenn Greenwald, Rick Perlstein, and Paul Krugman.

(Note: As I was finishing this, I noticed a new blog at The Washington Post, “The Fact-Checker.” It’s a good idea, but Michael Dobbs’ analysis of the MoveOn ad is deeply flawed, and he badly needed to fact-check Petraeus first. I wrote a longer comment over there, but in a nutshell, if we’re observing formal debate rules, MoveOn’s rhetoric is at times excessive, but their underlying point, that Petraeus has painted a distorted, overly-optimistic picture of Iraq, is completely accurate. A narrowly-framed rebuttal style that refuses to provide essential context isn’t very useful, and claiming the situation in Iraq is “mixed” is horribly misleading.

Also, I have to say of the media in general, where the hell was all this pearl-clutching about the military and fact-checking of charges for Max Cleland in 2002 and John Kerry in 2004? Good lord, people.)

Oooooh, that evil New York Times, running an advertisement! I guess they shouldn’t have run Giluliani’s ad, either!

Frankly, if all op-eds at the NYT were as substantive as the MoveOn ad, it’d be a vast improvement, most of all to David Brooks, Thomas Friedman and Maureen Dowd. (The MoveOn rhetorical style can be questioned, but unlike many NYT columnists, they were tackling an important issue and cited key articles and reports on their site.)

Oh, and let’s engage in some pre-emptive de-bunking. Despite Cheney’s lies to the contrary, MoveOn did not get a discounted rate. Let’s see if any conservative cartoonist runs with that one anyway, and let’s see how many news organizations call Cheney on it.

(Update: New information on the ad has emerged since, discussed by Greg Sargent here and here.)

Apparently Asay still doesn’t read legitimate newspapers, since he claims “the surge” is working. Notice that the only corrupt politicians are Democrats, and the media are in league with them. Sigh.

Oh, and Asay, the public ain’t buying it, either.

Allie’s cartoon uses the same motif as one by Chip Bok in the last installment, although with a different target.

“Clap your hands if you believe in fairies! And progress in Iraq!”

Cox and Forkum’s metaphor seems muddled here. They’re trying to say that the Dems tried to pull down Petraeus but failed. But um, in the cartoon, Petraeus is dragging them to Iraq. This is a good thing? Plus, Petraeus is already in Iraq. America is already in Iraq. Most Democrats, quite a few Republicans, and the majority of Americans want us out. The Democrats have acknowledged how bad things in Iraq actually are, so it’s not as if they need to be “dragged” there. That would be Bush. And Petraeus was sadly but unsurprisingly misleading in his testimony.

A more accurate metaphor would be Petraeus trying to present a Potemkin village to the public while skeptics peered behind it to see the truth.

This Allie cartoon is unintentionally amusing because of the goal posts. Where has Allie been? Bush keeps trying to move the goal posts! How could the Dems possibly get a hold of them when they’re always on the go?

More to the point, according to the goal posts (or benchmarks) Bush himself set, the “surge” has been a failure.

Oh, and even Petraeus doesn’t know if our staying in Iraq has made us any safer. (I’d accept it if he said that was beyond his brief, but he didn’t.)

This Allie cartoon really puzzled me at first. What the hell is he saying with his odd grenade-microphone? I see two possible readings. One is that the Dems are blissfully unaware of the explosive nature of what Petraeus is going to say. The second is that the Dems are such evil traitors they’re trying to frag Petraeus. The first is ridiculous, but then, that’s never stopped Allie. The second would fit his white-hot hatred of all Democrats, liberals, and dirty friggin’ hippies. But he’s ambiguous enough to have deniability. Any other takes?

Bok seems to be saying that the occupation (or “war”) is going well, and this has resulted in uglier politics. I’d say he’s wrong on both counts. Things aren’t better, and the politics have been ugly since at least 2002, instigated by Bush.

This cartoon by Ken Catalino ain’t too bad, although I think he misstates the Democratic politician’s dilemma. For many of them, the question is how to get the votes from the obstructionist Republicans. (Of course, cutting off funding would work.)

Ah, that lazy Iraqi government. They’ve even got a gut. (And is Maliki supposed to be wearing a thong there? I’d bet that’s haram.) While not much positive can be said about the Iraqi government, the Iraqis picked the current crew and could change them if they wanted. Plus, we deposed Hussein and created the mess in Iraq in the first place. It’s pretty crass, in fine imperialist fashion, to blame them.

(That’s not to say the plight of American personnel isn’t agonizing, because of course it is. Perhaps we could bring them home.)

Speaking of lazy… and the Iraqi government is our subordinate, I guess? So how exactly is Maliki and his government supposed to forge a political reconciliation between Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis, especially considering all the competing militias within those factions? It’s not exactly as easy as KP duty peeling potatoes.

Lisa Benson accuses Al-Qaeda of being a key cause, if not the key cause, of trouble in Iraq. But Bush and the Bushies have massively oversold Al-Qaeda’s role, for political reasons that should be obvious. Benson’s cartoon is strikingly reminiscent of Ramirez’ Iranian mullah-octopus in a previous installment.

Chuck Asay cracks me up. Less than a month ago, he was accusing al-Qaeda of being the main problem in Iraq. Now it’s Sunni-Shiite conflicts! Let’s also dispense with the fiction that political conflicts in the U.S. only started in 2000, and point out that it was Bush (with Rove and Cheney, of course) who created a hyper-partisan atmosphere.

Still, what really makes this comical is Asay trying to play wise. We invaded because of WMD, remember? Potential ethnic conflict was never mentioned, except in the many ignored warnings to the Bush administration. There’s added irony because as late as January 2003, two months before the invasion and months after Bush had decided to invade (despite his public stance), Bush met with a few Iraqi exiles in the White House. As we’ve covered before, he didn’t even know that Sunnis and Shiites existed in Iraq, saying something like, “Wait a minute, I thought they were all Muslims.” See, Chuck Asay, it helps if you know some basic essential facts about a country before you invade it. Had Bush bothered to grasp that, or listened to all those wise warnings, he might not have instigated this debacle.

(Oh, for that matter, Bush never said “We’ll have to be there for hundreds of years” either.)

Gorrell winds up delivering what’s probably the only accurate cartoon of the lot this time (although his other was pretty lame). Bush is just trying to buy time, pass Iraq to the Dems who are likely to win the White House in 2008, and then blame them for any results.

 

IRAN

I don’t think Ramirez is really complaining that the international community isn’t doing anything, it’s that they’re not sufficiently pugnacious for his tastes. After all, the IAEA just held a confererence with Iran as a primary focus.

Iran does not have a nuclear bomb. Cartoons that charge that they want one aren’t so bad, but I’m really sick of the cartoons that say they have one (and conservative cartoonists have drawn many).

Meanwhile, Retired Army General John Abizaid, the CentCom head for years, says we could live with a nuclear Iran.

Naturally, this has gone over well with the right-wingers, as chronicled by Digby and Glenn Greenwald. The right-wingers have implied or outright stated that Abizaid, of Arab descent, is a traitor or double agent.

I’m sure we all wait with bated breath for President Bush to condemn this scurrilous attack on one of America’s finest generals.

This may be the most belligerent of Cox and Forkum’s beloved “Bomb Iran!” cartoons yet. Here, Iran is not merely a threat, and Bush is not just a wimp for not attacking them. Here, Bush is not supporting the troops by not attacking Iran. That scoundrel! Funny, according to Seymour Hersh, and based on Peter Pace’s statements, important members of the military itself don’t agree with that interpretation.

 

TERRORISM

Gorrell deserves some credit for bringing up bin Laden. However, as many conservative cartoonists do, he chooses to depict America as a whole versus George W. Bush.

Aaaaaah! We’re all going to die! Shred the Constitution to wipe up that stain in your pants! Do what we say, or diiiiiie a fiery death!!!

If it’s too hard for Republicans to catch terrorists and follow the law, they should just resign and let the folks who can hack it run things.

 

NORMAN HSU

Lo, like a babe in the wilderness is Chuck Asay. He has just discovered that - gasp - political donors might seek favors! If Hillary Clinton has done nothing else, she has helped Asay’s political education, and for that she should be thanked. Long’standing Republican corruption apparently never tipped him off.

A political donation doesn’t necessarily mean a politician is beholden, and plenty of big donors donate to both parties or multiple candidates to cover their bases. However, I’m all in favor of publicly-funded elections to severely curtail any possible quid pro quo - but I suspect Asay doesn’t support that.

Bok means this as a slam, but it’s probably right, and a problem many of Hillary Clinton’s opponents would love to have - $850,000.

What is Glenn McCoy smoking? Larry Craig received plenty of attention, but so has the Norman Hsu story.

Here’s a key difference, though - Craig’s wrongdoing was his own, whereas Hsu was a donor and bundler for Clinton. There’s also no evidence she knew of his past.

Notice Hillary and Bill are both ugly and unkempt, Bill has a gut, Hillary stuffs her bra, and wow, “dirty Chinese” is quite the slur, huh? Norman Hsu was born in Hong Kong but is an American citizen. But hey, we don’t like those Chinese fellars. Besides the racial angle (I assume for his right-wing audience), Glenn McCoy is trying to sell that Hillary Clinton knew about Hsu all along. (The heart pattern on Bill’s boxers is a nice slimy touch.)

This Benson cartoon is pretty odd. My take is that she’s trying to say that there are all sorts of rotten things Hillary Clinton is hiding! Any other takes?

She’s corrupt, I tell you! Yes, Hsu was exposed, but she’s a villain! Nevermind that the Clintons were never found guilty of any wrongdoing for Whitewater, which was always an overinflated issue. The scandal angle was manufactured by The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, among others. (For more, see Gene Lyons’ Fools for Scandal.)

See above. At least Ramirez is creative in his approach. (His other Hsu cartoon riffed on the Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe.)

Yet again, the key point to watch is selling the meme that Hillary Clinton knew. (Oh, and those girls, they sure love their shoes! You sure pegged her, Varvel!)

What I find most interesting is that now most (if not all) campaigns are doing criminal background checks on bundlers. Also, conservative Tony Blankley is one of many pundits who said that all candidates are rather alarmed by Hillary Clinton setting the precedent of returning or donating all that money.

Wow, this gag just does not work.

 

HILLARY CLINTON

As long as we’re on Hillary… It’s hard to see, but the dog is wearing a “MoveOn” tag. We covered the silliness of asking her or any Dem to condemn MoveOn above. Still, Allie apparently doesn’t care that liberal Democrats opposed to our continued occupation in Iraq aren’t that keen on Hillary Clinton.

Meanwhile, as I write this, I’ve just seen news of the Senate’s rebuke of MoveOn. Clinton didn’t join the condemners. As Barbara Boxer said, “This is about politics, lets face it. Since when are we the ad police?”

I feel so proud - no habeas corpus, no down time for military personnel, but Congress can rally over this.

For a palate cleanser, here’s Digby again.

Did you know? Bill Clinton is a #@!&*!!! Did you also know? At least 60% of Americans think Bill Clinton would be a positive influence on Hillary should she win the White House in 2008.

 

JOHN EDWARDS

Lester can at least deliver a decent punchline once in a while. As far as I can tell, this cartoon is based on this single AP article at the start of the month. I wouldn’t be surprised if Drudge and Limbaugh ran with it. How accurate is it? (This is the AP, after all.) Could Edwards perhaps be asked to clarify? Might an AP reporter be able to do that? (I’ve written to try to do so.) Edwards’ own site states that Edwards “will also require preventive care coverage, with public plans offering preventive care without co-payments, and provide incentives for patients to participate.” The overwhelming message he’s always given is about mandatory coverage, not mandatory visits. Many health plans don’t cover preventative care, mental health, and other essentials, and that’s the key issue. It’s certainly fair to follow up for details and clarification, though.

All that said, in the article, he’s talking about mammograms. Most women of a certain age get them every year as a matter of course if they can afford them. Quite a few health plans (or jobs) require that their members get a physical or every year or other year. Many jobs require drug tests or regular eye exams. Certain immunizations are mandatory for children, for college students, and people traveling abroad. So while I don’t like the word “require,” is this really that big a change, apart from making sure people can pay for such care? The story smacks of, “I have a deadline and need a headline.”

What also amuses me is that conservative cartoonists such as Cox and Forkum draw cartoons that say we’re all going to die unless we give up our civil rights and allow racial profiling and wireless wiretaps, among other things. But dammit, they’re gonna be there at the front lines to prevent women from getting potentially life’saving preventative health care!

(Also, conservative cartoonists sure have an anal fixation.)

 

THOSE DAMNED DEMOCRATS

Unlike the Bush administration and the neocons, most of the Democrats don’t obsess about what bin Laden says. Really, bin Laden should be sending Bush money for all the great PR work he does for him.

Points to Shelton for clearly expressing a conservative belief. It’s wrong, as are many conservative beliefs, but it is a conservative belief.

Okay, let’s talk about moral standards and values. How about helping the poor? How about providing health care? How about making drugs for seniors more affordable? How about upholding justice, such as respecting the Constitution, including habeas corpus and the requirement for warrants? How about not politicizing the Department of Justice, the FDA and other government agencies? How about a commitment to competence? How about supporting the troops, including making sure they have enough down time between combat rotations to be with their families? (There’s also essential mental health and morale issues there.) How about reproductive freedom? How about not starting a war of choice? How about fighting for the minimum wage and the quality of life for average citizens, not merely corporations and the super-wealthy? How about fiscal responsibility?

Meanwhile, in the Republican column, we have… Selfishness and being a busybody about who you sleep with. Okay then.

To continue the Digby love, check out “Recognizing One Of Their Own” on this very subject:

Many social conservatives are phonies, and the rest are willing dupes…

The truth is that “family values” for the most part is just a phrase certain tribal conservatives use to assert their moral superiority over the rest of us, probably in an attempt to deflect the fact that they are, at heart, cruel bigoted small-minded jerks.

It’s a feature, not a bug.

Larry Wright takes his crack at Hillary Clinton - but goes for broke since he’s trying to smear the entire Democratic party with it (while referencing Larry Craig). It’s always funny when conservatives try this, since in any scandal match-up, their rap sheet is a mile longer than that of the Dems. I think you know what this is, and Larry Wright has thoughtfully provided toilet paper - or money - to wipe it up with.

 

LARRY CRAIG

Speaking of Craig… Stantis neatly captures current GOP anxiety.

Haha. Give credit to Asay for at least trying to craft arguments, inane though they may be. Everyone’s a bit of a sinner, but they feel shame - except that evil Bill Clinton!!! Clinton’s asked for forgiveness, Craig has not, Craig also hasn’t resigned, but let’s still try to attack Clinton!

Asay’s cartoon also doesn’t change the fact that Republicans are embarrassed over Craig, and their contrary stance with Vitter (as covered in the previous installment) exposes their utter hypocrisy. They’re the party of homophobia and power at all costs, not integrity.

Umm… This is a pretty disturbing cartoon, especially since I’m not sure it says what Gorrell intended. Again, when it comes to ethics, the Republicans lose, hands down, no contest. But the Republican is proposing, or propositioning, the Democrat here. Gorrell is identifying the Republican party with Larry Craig, sexual insecurity and closet homosexuality. I mean, he’s right, but there’s no way he intended to convey that!

 

HEALTH CARE

First of all, I’d be pretty impressed by any illegal immigrant making three times the “national poverty level.” Hell, three times the minimum wage would be better than many of them receive! But the key point Ramirez is selling here is: don’t support health care for kids, and don’t support universal heath care in general, because if you do, an illegal immigrant might use it.

Accordingly, we will now close all public parks because a crack head might use one. Oh, and public libraries, basketball courts, tennis courts… those too. Hell, why don’t we shut down the public highways while we’re at it? Surely there’s some wrongdoing going on there!

(What’s funny is that Ramirez sorta implies he’d be fine with Miguel if he’d only buy private health insurance.)

Lisa Benson tries a similar tact. Medicaid and Medicare have about 3% overhead, whereas 20-40% of costs with private insurance is administrative costs and profit. We pay more and get less than the U.K. and many other industrialized nations. Points for a creative design, but this is a poisoned cake Benson’s baking.

Stantis at least delivers a good gag.

Hmm, might this be an argument for offering more preventative care?

 

ENERGY

Yes, Gary McCoy, the deregulation you conservatives fetishize worked out great with Enron, didn’t it? Go listen to the phone calls of Enron employees deliberately arranging brownouts in California to drive up their profits even higher, and get back to us.

This is a straw man in several ways. Current legislation mandates a fleet average of 35 mpg by 2020. Also, people come in different sizes, but most don’t “need” a particular level of crappy mileage for their vehicles. Better mileage ain’t a bad thing, depending on how it’s achieved.

…And here we go again. SUVs are an issue in part because of their lousy mileage, but also because it has been possible to get a tax deduction for buying them. In other words, the U.S. Government has subsidized air pollution. Also, no one is “banning” SUVs per se; they are even hybrid SUVs now.

Note the underlying narrative, though. The government is trying to tell you what to do. And the government is a nagging woman. Gosh, don’t you just hate them? And broccoli?

 

ISLAMOPHOBIA

Wow. Normally Asay hedges a bit by saying “radical Islam” or “Islamic extremists,” but here he doesn’t even bother. Estimates are inexact, but there are roughly 1 to 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide and a few million in the United States. It clearly escapes Asay, but he’s smearing his fellow Americans here. Note the flies, as well. You see, those people are unclean.

I think Asay is trying a lame joke in the last two panels, unless he’s trying to say that Americans are superficial, unwilling to heed the call of this crucial battle, but turned off by bad dye jobs.

Not that we should have to do Religion 101 here, but Islam means “submission to the will of God” and nothing in it is inherently about death or destruction. Hell, Anthopology 101 would inform Asay that wouldn’t be viable for the basis of a culture. But xenophobia and scapegoating, those are sadly traditions worldwide.

That said, conservatives certainly seem to own the franchise here in the States, and have for decades. Michelle Malkin and many Christianist authoritarians like to posit that there’s a clash of civilizations. It’s a staple of right-wing chickenhawks to suppose that they are bravely fighting the Dread Islamic Menace, and ridiculously, that somehow we now face a greater existential threat than we did during WWII or the Cold War. Bigotry and imperialism is also a key reason we’re in Iraq in the first place. For more on this, from a previous installment:

…see “Lock Up the Womenfolk, the Muslims are Comin’!” Glenn Greenwald’s “The Islamists are coming” and Johann Hari’s New Republic piece on the National Review cruise. Fear of Muslims and brown people - it’s more than an attitude, it’s a way of life!

 

MISCELLANEOUS

I so rarely get to feature a decent Asay cartoon, so here’s a pro-cartoonist one.

Holbert’s pretty funny.

Remember, if you’re a Republican, every occasion is an opportunity to pitch a conservative policy! And one crackpot, who should obviously be reprimanded, is that occasion! (Wait a minute, I thought conservatives were for principal and teacher-led prayer in schools?)

I’m with Varvel about the undue influence of lobbyists. Still, a great deal depends on who is running the government and whether they’re looking out for the citizens they supposedly represent. For the Bush administration’s warped morals in a nutshell, check out Hilzoy’s post “A Study In Contrasts.”

I’m with Stantis on this one. Some young kids, and certainly some teenagers, legitimately need meds. But medication should never be the first option. (Don’t put Huck Finn on Ritalin.) The thing is, it’s not the kids’ fault. It’s the parents, and sadly, an attitude among some doctors. But why address your own parenting when you can drug the kids up instead?

Yeah, sports heroes aren’t what they once were, and that does stink.

Of course, politicians aren’t much better, are they?

Not a bad cartoon by Payne, but I bet even most teenagers know who Pavarotti is. Payne always likes a “those damn kids” angle, though.

Meanwhile, this is a lovely cartoon. Bravo, Pavarotti, and bravo, Henry Payne. First-rate.

 

9-11

Let’s start with the most political one. The most charitable interpretation is that Ramirez is saying other than a brief pause, it’s business as usual. Less charitably, Ramirez is saying if you don’t back the specific lousy policies and loaded terminology he’s shilling, you don’t really care about 9/11. I think it’s a mix of both, honestly, but let’s err on the side of charity for the occasion.

Payne conjures bin Laden, who is still at large…

…As does Stantis.

Lester’s cartoon is a bit bizarre. This ship has sailed long ago, hasn’t it, with plans for Ground Zero? Lester’s entitled to his opinion, but the World Trade Towers were pretty ugly, among other things. Personally, I’d rather have a place of quiet reflection and positive human activity than recreating the old towers “one foot taller.” I don’t begrudge Lester his feelings, but I don’t like the implication than any other course of action is wrong, or capitulation. At some point, it’s important to move past vengeance and reflexive defiance to some sort of wisdom and maturity. Such prime real estate was never going to be left undeveloped, but a good memorial seems the most important thing, to me at least.

I find it interesting that Cox and Forkum highlight a Democratic sex scandal. Perhaps it makes them nostalgic. But overall, I fond this cartoon poignant.

At his best, Gorrell’s taste for the simple can be eloquent.

Varvel drew two cartoons for 9/11. I thought this was the more distinctive.

(My most recent pieces on 9/11 are here, here and here, but there are many great pieces out there.)

 

 

That’s it for this round of cartoons!

Last time in the comments, reader Charle passed on the sad news that after 23 years, Mike Shelton will not be working for the Orange County Register. What may be his last cartoon appeared in this installment, although apparently he’ll spend more time on animations on the web.

While I certainly differ from Shelton on many political issues, his cartoons often demonstrated creativity, a visual flair and a more original take than some of his fellow conservative cartoonists. Editorial cartooning is a fine American tradition, and it’s sad to see cartoonists laid off.

As always, we celebrate the right of cartoonists of all sorts to mock others, as well as our right to mock them.

As usual, feel free to vote for the most offensive/ridiculous/stupid/funny cartoon(s) of this installment in the comments.

To be added to the RWCW mailing list, use the e-mail link on this page.

See you next time!

Update: Made a few minor edits, and finished an entry I forgot. The perils of late-night blogging!

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