Right-Wing Cartoon Watch: Challenging GOP talking points, celebrating the fine American tradition of editorial cartooning, and having a little fun in the process. (The longer blurb.)

Welcome to the 31st installment of RWCW, covering five weeks of newsy goodness. Thrill to the newest mock outrage! Shake at the latest recycled smear! Marvel at the sight of conservatives attacking key parts of the Constitution - except the Second Amendment, of course. Plus, The New Yorker and its critics horn in on our act! (Well, sorta.)

As always, pace yourself, and skip whatever you wish. Too many right-wing cartoons at one time can lead to a toxic overload!

 

IRAQ

Ah, Eric Allie, stalwart movement conservative - never shall he waver from depicting withdrawal as “surrender,” desired by those aging lefty hippies who hate America! Never mind that - as has been the case for a long time now - the majority of Americans favor withdrawal, and on a more speedy timetable than even Obama is proposing.

As to that “15 of 18 benchmarks” met bit, we covered this in passing in “In Their World, Iraq is Okay,” but Dan Froomkin provides a good overview:

Karen DeYoung writes in The Washington Post: “Iraq has met all but three of 18 original benchmarks set by Congress last year to measure security, political and economic progress, according to a report by the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

“The embassy’s evaluation, compiled in May, contrasts sharply with other recent assessments that Iraq has failed to achieve many of the goals that the Baghdad government and President Bush said would be reached by the end of 2007. A report by the Government Accountability Office, released last week, cited little improvement in the political and economic spheres and noted continuing military problems despite a significant decline in overall violence.”

Anne Flaherty writes for the Associated Press that “Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., who requested the administration’s updated assessment, scoffed at the May report, which he says uses the false standard of determining whether progress on a goal is ’satisfactory’ versus whether the benchmark has been met. He estimates that only a few of the 18 benchmarks have been fully achieved.”

(Hmm, and I wonder if Bush’s appointed ambassador and the embassy staff might be a wee bit less credible than the more independent GAO. Eric Martin has more.)

As we’ve often written here, any drop in violence, whether momentary or sustained, is a good thing. However, as Bush and Petraeus both said, the point of “the surge” was to buy time for a political reconciliation that hasn’t happened yet and remains far away at best. Since Eric Allie is recycling an old, reality-free claim, let me refute it with an older post that still holds true, with some key questions Bush, Allie and the neocons have never bothered to answer:

1. How are we going to reconcile the deep divisions between Sunnis and Shiites in Baghdad, let alone the rest of Iraq?

2. What are we going to do about the four to five million displaced Iraqis?

3. Why do most Iraqis still not have reliable electricity and safe drinking water, and what are we going to do about it? What are doing about food, and unemployment?…

I could keep going, but I’ve yet to see a surge proponent address those three realistically, if at all.

This is also an odd cartoon, reality-wise, and unintentionally ironic given the horrible situation in Iraq, despite any momentary or lasting gains. Perhaps Ken Catalino has simply been watching all those media types explain how regardless of the actual situation in Iraq or our policy - even if the policy contradicts McCain’s own - Iraq is a winning issue for McCain.

This is one of a few topics in this installment where I question the hackery-to-incomprehension ratio. Lisa Benson is referencing the story, yet again, of Marines in 2003 discovering an IAEA-sealed site in Tuwaitha, Iraq that contained yellowcake uranium. Let’s turn this over to Maha and her post “Wingnut Hysteria” (emphasis added):

In fact, the IAEA had inspected the site several times before the Iraq War began in March 2003. The last inspection was on February 11, 2003. United Nations weapons inspectors had visited the facility in December, 2002. The yellowcake was all inventoried and stored in drums with IAEA seals. I wrote a lot about this back in 2003.

The critical point is that Saddam Hussein couldn’t do anything with this uranium because he lacked the equipment and technology to enrich it. So it had been sitting around for years in drums sealed by the IAEA. No nuclear program…

In fact, one of my arguments all along about the 16 words and the alleged Niger yellowcake was that it made no sense for Saddam Hussein to purchase more yellowcake when he was already sitting on a huge pile of yellowcake that he didn’t have the technology to enrich.

(Maha revisits a few points in “Wingnut Hysteria II”, and Sadly, No! covers the same nuttiness.)

Sigh. Glenn McCoy unsurprisingly runs with the same meme. If we grant that this is sincere incomprehension versus hackery, is it the chronology or the weapons technology that eludes them, or both? (I vote for both.) Back to Maha, responding to various incorrect conservative claims:

Yellowcake IS uranium and is radioactive, but you can’t make weapons with it. It is not “only a few steps” from being weapons grade. It takes considerable refinement and considerable time, and it’s clear that Saddam Hussein lacked the means to refine it and wasn’t trying…

Yellowcake uranium that had been stored in sealed drums for several years with no attempt to do anything with it does not constitute a “WMD program.”

So what’s really going on?

The amusing part of all this is that every single time some part of that yellowcake uranium gets back into the news, the wingnuts get all excited about the “new” discovery and start celebrating that the invasion of Iraq is vindicated. This seems to happen every 18 months or so.

Funny, we see a lot of that here.

It can be a bit hard to read, but Ramirez has labeled the horse “U.S. Troops” and is calling Maliki a “jackass.” (DDay has more on the actual deal under discussion.) The American occupation is overwhelmingly unpopular with Iraqis, yet U.S. troops form a key portion of Maliki’s power - putting him in a tricky situation, especially with elections coming up. It’s also why the troops themselves, who have certainly made sacrifices, are also stuck in quite the bind.

What’s also striking here is the same imperialist attitude we’ve covered in previous posts, that combination of disdain for the “liberated” with the insistence that the “liberated” show gratitude, well captured in this incident from 2006:

“President Bush made clear in a private meeting this week that he was concerned about the lack of progress in Iraq and frustrated that the new Iraqi government — and the Iraqi people — had not shown greater public support for the American mission, participants in the meeting said Tuesday. . . .

“[T]he president expressed frustration that Iraqis had not come to appreciate the sacrifices the United States had made in Iraq, and was puzzled as to how a recent anti-American rally in support of Hezbollah in Baghdad could draw such a large crowd.”

The attitude is bad enough, but the puzzlement is appalling. (I just read about - surprise, surprise! - Tom Friedman showing basically the same attitude. Meanwhile, while Maliki has amended himself to say he’s not backing Obama’s withdrawal plan specifically, he did say that “The tenure of the coalition troops in Iraq should be limited… Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic.” Update: More on Maliki’s statements from Froomkin and C&L.)

Har har! That’ll show them damn hippies! Crooks and Liars has a good piece on this ad and the media reaction. It’s certainly a blunt ad, but McCain doesn’t have an exit strategy, and doesn’t even want one - apart from an ill-defined “victory” he has no coherent or realistic plan for achieving. Anyone’s free to criticize the ad’s style, of course, but given McCain’s actual policies on Iraq, the ad’s core point seems kinda fair. Like the infamous “Daisy” ad some media figures compared it to, the MoveOn ad does play on anxiety, but rather than stoking fear about a possible future nuclear war, it raises concern about an actual, ongoing situation and the continuing casualties in Iraq. I’m not set on how effective this approach is politically. However, I’ll make three points. One, NBC’s Chuck Todd feeling offended by an ad that points out that people are dying in Iraq is less dire than the fact that, y’know, people are dying in Iraq. Two, in taking offense the media presumes that Bush - and McCain, who is continuing his policies - are acting in good faith, when that’s a very hard sell (see Bush’s War and No End in Sight). Three, being pro-war and anti-war are not remotely morally equivalent or equally valid positions.

Sigh. A standard conservative slam. 2008 has seen television coverage of Iraq plummet, as we’ve documented before in more detail, but it ain’t because the news is rosy. Let me turn things over to Eric Martin on “the surge,” although Lara Logan probably put it best when she said, “If I were to watch the news that you hear in the United States—I’d just blow my brains out because it would drive me nuts.”

 

AFGHANISTAN

Actually, the Taliban’s been back for a long time now, but it’s nice of Jerry Holbert to be the lone conservative cartoonist this time around to notice. (Juan Cole and DDay have more on Afghanistan, and Obsidian Wings examines McCain’s shifting policies on the subject.)

 

NORTH KOREA

Nice of Gorrell to notice, since, funny, in our previous installment, the same approach the Bush administration is now using with North Korea was being denounced by conservatives - and Bush himself - as appeasement.

 

IRAN

I can buy that Iran is a threat, but not that it’s a major, imminent threat, especially given the much more massive arsenals and military budgets of Israel and the United States. Nor do I buy that military action is the only or best option - or that wisdom is the Bush administration’s primary guide. Neocons and others eager for another war is never a good sign, nor is a report that Bush backs an Israeli plan for a strike on Iran. (As for threats to America, if you think gas is expensive now, just watch if there’s an attack on Iran.)

Umm… speaking of which… Correlation is not cause, but really, this claim by Asay is pretty remarkable, made virtually in a vacuum from all other factors, some of which, y’know, are pretty well covered in the news. The implied solution is what, attack Iran, to slay the ‘evildoers’ preventing us from having cheap gas? I’m really glad Asay’s not in high office.

While we’re dissecting the conservative mindset, and their striking ability to achieve the opposite of their purported (not necessarily actual) goals, here’s a tidbit from Bernard Chazelle:

On October 14, 2001, Roger Diwan, a managing director of the Petroleum Finance Company, cited this quote from bin Laden in a Times interview:

[Bin Laden] said at one point that he wants oil to be $144 a barrel” — about six times what it sells for now.

In today’s news:

Oil prices raced above $145 a barrel for the first time.

As our preznit might say, mission accomplished.

Vote for McCain, or you’re gonna die! Aaaaaaaahhh!!! Funny how conservatives keep suggesting Iran already has a nuclear weapon, ain’t it, or at least keep obscuring the distinction? (Dan Froomkin has roundups here, here and here that question whether the Bush administration is doing the same ol’ shtick with Iran or is engaging in more of that “appeasement” diplomacy stuff.)

Apologies for not addressing every charge by Ramirez here, but it’s not as if he’s citing his claims (he’s not entirely off-base on Pakistan, however). A few points, though. “Nuclear program” is not the same as “nuclear weapons program,” and a “program” is not the same as actually having nuclear power or a nuclear weapon. The IAEA has by and large been a helpful organization for curtailing nuclear proliferation. The neocons don’t like it because it also undercuts their persistent calls for war. As to a couple of specific claims by Ramirez, Mohamed ElBaradei’s statements about Iran having a nuke are, unsurprisingly, taken out of context, as the video shows. He said it would take them six months to a year to build a bomb (although that does sound like a shift), that it would depend on Iran throwing out the Non-Proliferation Treaty and throwing out all the IAEA inspectors (likely to draw some attention). Needless to say, Ramirez ignored the other things ElBaradei said, that attacking Iran would be disastrous and would push them to try to develop the very nuclear weapons hawks claim they fear so much. But the neocons and their pals really hate ElBaradei and the IAEA, even - or more accurately, especially - after they were proven right on Iraq. (Personally, I’d like more clarification from the IAEA on Iran, but funny how conservatives always hate Nobel Peace Prize winners.)

 

BUSH AND THE GOP

Not a bad gag by Stantis. I’ll leave it to Hilzoy in “Diplomacy 101″ to explain why the behavior at the G-8 summit of our frat-boy-in-chief might not be wise. That would be him leaving saying, “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter” and punching his fist in the air with a big grin. Still, it did get him “Alpha Dog of the Week” from Stephen Colbert, who said:

For far too long the president has been forced to do a terrible job of pretending to care what people think of him. But not anymore, folks… It is going to be so sweet when he pops by the World Court in the Hague and screams: ‘Adios, from waterboard central! Then he can drop by the stock exchange, ring the bell, and scream: ‘Goodbye from the world’s weakest currency!’ And then he can head over to Iraq, and as he’s leaving, shout out: ‘I break it, you bought it!’

(Via.)

Will Bush finish as the worst president in American history, or merely crack the worst three? Place your bets!

 

CONGRESS

Wow. The nice thing about Asay, I guess, is how purely he distils the right-wing viewpoint. Everything is Congress’ fault - oh, and helping the poor is bad, I guess. We deal with several of these myths in greater depth later on, but unregulated lender greed was the chief cause of the housing crisis, the rising of gas prices has many factors, but devaluation of the dollar is a key one, and having health care driven by insurance companies and their greed is the chief problem there.

Not bad by Varvel. However, as we’ve noted before, Congress is unpopular primarily because it doesn’t oppose Bush enough.

 

GUANTANAMO AND HABEAS CORPUS

For this story, the Supreme Court upholding habeas corpus for Guantanamo detainees, Lisa Benson provides the first of the crashing plane cartoons our usual gang love so much.

But Glenn McCoy is not to be outdone! Ruth Bader Ginsburg is but a black-robed flying carpet for unkempt, scimitar-wielding terrorists!

Okay, seriously. I find this type of BS infuriating, because it’s grossly inaccurate and misleading, and this attitude has extremely dangerous consequences, like, I dunno, moving us closer to a totalitarian state. Here again I question the hackery-to-incomprehension ratio. Basically, habeas corpus mean the authorities can’t imprison someone at will, indefinitely, without charges and cause. It doesn’t mean everyone imprisoned is pronounced innocent and set free! Guess what? With Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other actual terrorists, there are charges and cause. They can file habeas briefs, and they will lose, which should not come as a shock. Meanwhile, I don’t think I’ve ever heard a conservative acknowledge (and certainly not bemoan) that we have held and continue to hold innocent people at Guantanamo, who will benefit from this ruling. This case was never about freeing terrorists. It was about affirming our justice system over unchecked executive power. (Invoking Lincoln also has some problems.)

(For more, see Sadly, No’s “OMFG, We’re All Gonna Die!!!!!!!!!” I swear, at one point, I thought one had to be smart to earn a law degree.)

From another (non-snarky) Sadly, No post:

The court extended the right not to all foreign nationals captured by the military, but only to foreign nationals held in a place over which the U.S. exercised de facto sovereignty. The U.S. exercises such control over Gitmo by virtue of a lease that gives the United States “complete jurisdiction and control” over that base. (Link to opinion page.) The Supreme Court did not say that a prisoner held on a battlefield has habeas corpus rights.

(Maybe if the decision were actually written in crayon, Allie would better understand it.)

Did you know? Justice Kennedy hates America! Habeas corpus has no direct bearing on war planning or execution, and we just covered the battlefield aspect. That pesky rule of law! Basically, this is Asay saying, “And we would have won the war on terror, too, if it weren’t for those meddling supreme court justices and their damn dog!”

Good grief. This has been a conservative talking point for several years now. Hackery or incomprehension? Does Chip Bok really not understand that Miranda rights have absolutely no bearing on warfare, or the Guantanamo case, or resisting an act of terrorism? Maybe exploiting 9-11 will help his case!

What’s truly sad is that here, conservatives are attacking one of our core rights, the Great Writ of habeas corpus, as if it’s something new and radical, and as if basic justice is something to be feared rather than something essential to be used, prized, and defended. But tell us again how terrorists hate our freedoms…

For shame. We already covered the Miranda angle, but Payne really should know better, given the Nuremberg Trials and the emphasis for justice there (and it’s hard to out-evil the Nazis).

Bush and McCain have at times talked about this, too - putting bin Laden on trial. It was what we did at Nuremberg, and Saddam Hussein was also put on trial. Offering war criminals good lawyers has been a traditional way of legitimizing the process. That’s not what Glenn McCoy’s suggesting here, though, as he decides to dive into the gutter and wallow in filth, suggesting that Barack Obama hates America and is rooting for bin Laden. Ya know, some liberals call conservatives stupid sometimes (ahem), but they rarely engage in this sort of demonization, sadly commonplace on the right.

Ramirez lays it on really thick. Justice and due process aren’t causing American troop deaths! Take away the thought balloon and this could easily be labeled, more accurately, “Bush’s War of Choice” or “Bush and McCain’s Endless War.” I do think some authoritarians truly believe that we won’t be safe unless we’re absolutely vicious and violate our own core laws and principles. They’re horribly wrong, but some are sincere.

For the Bush administration, attempts to destroy habeas corpus and due process stem from some true, wrong beliefs as well (or did initially). However, the desire to hide and avoid prosecution for war crimes such as torture has been a major motivation for their undermining of the justice system for several years now. Since Ramirez, like the Bushies, has defended torture, let’s recap: Torture is immoral, it is illegal, it endangers our troops and other Americans, and it doesn’t work - except if one’s after a false confession.

But get ready for an astonishing reversal on that Constitution-thingy!

 

GUNS

Yes, conservatives hailed that the DC gun ban was overturned by the Supreme Court. (Funny, most gun control advocates weren’t opposing a “well-regulated militia,” nor muskets.)

Meanwhile, conservatives didn’t like the Supreme Court striking down the death penalty for child rapists and holding that capital punishment had to be reserved for fatal crimes. (A few conservative cartoonists drew similar pieces.) You’d be hard pressed to find anyone who likes child rapists. However, obviously some very conservative people, including some Supreme Court justices, support life in prison as punishment over execution. I can’t blame anyone, parents especially, for violent urges toward such criminals. The psychological damage to child victims is generally horrible and long-lasting. So I guess it’s good that Lisa Benson’s here to tell us that the estimated 200 million firearms in the United States and vigilante justice have solved that problem everywhere in America except D.C. (As with other subjects we’ve covered, this is a serious issue that stirs strong feelings, but this solution is not a good one.)

Back to the D.C. gun law. Decide for yourself whether Glenn McCoy is merely making a 25 year old pop culture reference or expressing wish fulfillment here. The idea that the Second Amendment was being shredded is bogus, most of all because Scalia even stated that some gun laws are constitutional, just not the D.C. one. It is funny how McCoy doesn’t care about the 4th Amendment, nor habeas corpus. You can spy on him without a warrant and arrest him without cause and hold him indefinitely, as long as you don’t try to take away his guns first!

Still, my favorite of this set may be Chuck Asay’s. Asay’s from Colorado, and that house sure doesn’t say D.C. to me. But that Supreme Court decision sure was great for Asay and his hero here! Now he can put up a sign warning people he’ll shoot them if they come on his lawn, especially unkempt hippies with headbands and kids who wear their baseball caps backwards and just may be ethnic (it’s a little hard to see). I can relate, because when I celebrate Independence Day, it’s all about cooking up some dead cow, sucking down a beer, and bustin’ a cap in the ass of anybody who look at me funny.

 

PRESIDENTIAL RACE

It’s the kid versus the geezer! (It sure is funny how in athletics, you’re old in your thirties, but in politics, you’re sometimes considered too young in your forties.)

Obama was never that liberal, although this cartoon isn’t entirely off-base. Still, he certainly is more liberal than McCain. (What’s up with the basketball and the outfit on the left, though? Is that supposed to be “hip” Obama, or “black” Obama, or “shiftless, slovenly youth” Obama? It’s not as if the man just starting wearing suits! Any takes?)

John McCain is hardly a centrist! His current problem is the same it’s been for months - not angering the conservative base while also trying not to alienate the rest of the country. (McCain’s preferred method seems to be taking different positions on different days in different locales. Meanwhile, this is the most entertaining recent McCain squirm.)

I suppose one could view this as a double slam, but I think McCoy’s mostly trying to level one of the latest conservative attacks on Obama. (The McCain campaign and some other conservatives have actually said that Obama is the one more like Bush! Hahaahhaahaha!) Meanwhile, some media outlets have been trying to downplay the differences between the candidates, but as Steve Benen points out, it’s pretty ridiculous.

There are a few issues where Obama can be legitimately criticized on these grounds (and we’ll look at some of those shortly). Meanwhile, Steve Benen’s compiled a list of shifts by McCain. As of July 8th, it’s up to 61, and there are some doozies.

Okay, this one made me laugh… although not at the notion of a glass ceiling and women’s rights, of course. It’s just that this is about the only time you will ever see Asay championing women’s rights, but it’s only to bash Obama and affirmative action. I wonder if Asay’s aware there was an actual nomination process, in which votes were cast…?

Wow, even Asay doesn’t always go 0 for 4, but here he does! (”Supply-siders are right”?!?)

First of all, Obama is patriotic. I think Asay means “authoritarian.” We covered why some young conservatives are leaning toward Obama in the previous installment, but mostly it seems that social issues aren’t as impotant for them, given Iraq and the economy, and the competence thing is sorta appealling, too. (Some young, socially conservative evangelicals also like the idea of helping the poor, as well.)

Obama has been raising money than McCain, and has the potential to raise much more when the general election technically starts, but RNC funds dwarf those for the DNC currently. But notice the “race card” at the bottom of the deck. Did you know? The main reason for Obama’s record-breaking fundraising is racial guilt!

We’ve been over this before, but it’s pretty ridiculous. It is true that Obama is getting more coverage than McCain overall, but most of the press luuuuvs McCain, with the new approach at the AP a prime example.

 

BARACK OBAMA

This line of attack won’t stop any time soon, although it’s growing increasingly ludicrous, and doesn’t have much to do with the actual Obama campaign. The ever-sneering Charles Krauthammer made a similar accusation recently. Really, is this all they’ve got? And accusations of arrogance from people who think attacking Iran would be swell and still think invading Iraq was a great idea? (Hilzoy has a great post dissecting Krauthammer, who I don’t think ever has produced a column without a disingenuous argument. In this case, accusing a candidate of arrogance is much easier when you re-write what he actually said.)

At least this time around, Obama isn’t depicted as Dorothy, I guess. But boy, the McCoy boys are stuck in the 60s in their attitudes towards those damned hippies - look at Obama’s ‘fro and how he’s dressed.

This charge will also continue, recyled ad infinitum. (Benson also sure likes her vehicle cartoons.) First of all, while Obama has certainly sounded the bipartisan cry in his campaign, the primary “change” he’s always been pitching has been away from what Bush and the GOP have been doing. And I’m all for fiscal responsibility, but when was the last time conservative officials and pundits were for that? As always, conservatives will pretend that lowering taxes for the middle class and raising them on the rich actually means raising them for the middle class, and that all social services and government programs are evil, evil, evil!!!

Umm… Is Catalino saying that Obama won’t do these things, or that they don’t work? Because they do, or at least help. Meanwhile, Bush’s economic policies have been horrendous, and McCain’s proposals have in some cases been even worse. If you want delusional fairy tales, it’s hard to top this one from the McCain campaign on how they’ll balance the budget:

The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction.

Plus, a free pony for everybody! Wheeeee! (By the way, does this mean that McCain is revising ‘Victory in Iraq by 2013′” to ‘Victory by 2010!’ to balance that budget?)

Many conservative cartoonists went with this attack, and several used this basic format. 1) Obama’s always been for diplomacy versus the oh-so-very-sophisticated-silent-treatment-and-saber-rattling of the Bush administration. However, he has said some pretty hawkish things about Pakistan himself. Still, as far I’ve seen, the “flip-flop” Gorrell’s charging here depends on a rigid, uncharitable reading of Obama’s response to a very poorly worded question at one of the Democratic debates (more on this in a later post, perhaps). 2) The financing charge is a fair one. 3) The Iraq “flip-flop” is ridiculous, and depends on a lousy AP story. The Obsidian Wings gang can explain. (Meanwhile, Gorrell didn’t cover FISA - was that because he wanted just six panels, or because he approved? Tom Tomorrow’s take is sharper.)

Accusing Obama of changing his position on this issue is fair. Guess he shouldn’t have said he’d do otherwise. You can see Obama’s announcement here and judge it for yourself. Meanwhile, Ramirez apparently won’t cover McCain’s primary election law-breaking, or the RNC’s larger war chest, or wealthy conservative organizations such as Freedom’s Watch that run ads against Democrats (Karl Rove gets money from it) - y’know, the sort of organizations Obama criticizes in his announcement. (Personally, I’d like to see more comprehensive election reform, with public funding bumped up substantially, corporate donations and lobbying severely restricted, better standards for voting machines, a rotating regional primary system, and a move from the winner-takes-all-of-a-state electoral system. But that won’t be easy to achieve, and is a more lengthy discussion.)

I have much more on this in “Skippy and the Mystery of the Missing Journalism,” but it’s funny how conservatives and the media attribute arrogance to Obama over a seal used once and then abandoned, but when Republicans do the same thing, somehow it’s not arrogant.

I’d use the terms bigotry and fear-mongering instead, but this was the conservative cri de coeur not long ago. Howard Kurtz’ conservative blog roundup provided a few samples, such as this one from the WSJ’s James Taranto: “Obama is baselessly accusing Republicans of racial prejudice, or at least of cynically pandering to racial prejudice.”

Not all conservatives are bigots, of course, and some have spoken out against bigotry during this campaign. But when Glenn Reynolds and the National Review claim their side is morally pure on this front, we’ve moved from the hackery-incomprehension ratio to the ignorance-shameless liar ratio. For starters, we could turn to The Daily Show and an older post, “That Damned Liberal Racism.” If you need more, somehow, I think I can come up with a few more examples.

In addition to the Clinton slam, it appears McCoy is making the same laughable accusation of plagiarism Fox News and Michelle Malkin made, ably mocked by The Young Turks and The Daily Show (it’s the last item of the clip already linked above). If ever you needed proof that most conservative attacks are generated like Mad Libs, scrambling to find any old weak crap to throw in, here it is. (As with Rush Limbaugh and his listeners, what we’re seeing is mostly a comforting ritual of affirming tribal identity for conservatives, and has little to do with empirical notions of truth.)

Umm… yeah. I’ll let the Freudians unpack this one for those that need it. Meanwhile, Crooks and Liars looks into Bill O’Reilly releasing this audio in the first place.

The only reason I’m featuring this cartoon is to note that this attack is still going on. Guys, when Laura Bush vouches for Michelle Obama on this one, you really should give it up… but then, that’s not your nature, is it?

 

WESLEY CLARK’S COMMENTS

Clark’s line sounds impolitic out of context, but it’s correct, and he was - surprise - responding to a statement by Schieffer and taken out of context. Media Matters has the transcript and video, and many pieces following the media coverage, most of which ignored Clark’s praise for McCain:

CLARK: …I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands of millions of others in the Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. He has been a voice on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and he has traveled all over the world. But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Air — in the Navy that he commanded, it wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall. He hasn’t seen what it’s like when diplomats come in and say, “I don’t know whether we’re going to be able to get this point through or not. Do you want to take the risk? What about your reputation? How do we handle it” –

SCHIEFFER: Well –

CLARK: — “publicly?” He hasn’t made those calls, Bob.

SCHIEFFER: Well — well, General, maybe he –

CLARK: So –

SCHIEFFER: Could I just interrupt you? If –

CLARK: Sure.

SCHIEFFER: I have to say, Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down. I mean –

CLARK: Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.

This is a false comparison. To continue from the same interview where we left off:

SCHIEFFER: Really?

CLARK: But Barack is not — he is not running on the fact that he has made these national security pronouncements. He’s running on his other strengths. He’s running on the strengths of character, on the strengths of his communication skills, on the strengths of his judgment — and those are qualities that we seek in our national leadership.

(During McCain’s recent interview on Conan O’Brien’s show, McCain managed to insert his POW stint and military service into virtually every statement.)

(That’s supposed to be Clark? It looks more like LBJ to me.) Clark was speaking for himself, and Obama disowned his remarks. Personally, I’ve always felt sympathy and some respect for McCain for his ordeal, and I know I’m far from alone. His best moments in the Republican debates were where he spoke out against torture, going against the grain of his competitors, often the audience, and in some cases the moderators. But as we’ve covered before, sadly, he’s shifted on torture, and his Iraq policy is delusional and horrible. Even if that weren’t the case, of course his POW experience and military service, honorable though they may be, do not by themselves qualify him to be president. Otherwise, every vet or POW would also be qualified, and that’s obviously not the case.

In addition to Media Matters, Crooks and Liars has much more on this, there’s a TPM compilation video (if you can stand it) and Digby has a sharp take.

 

PHILL GRAMM’S COMMENTS

Credit Varvel for criticizing Phil Gramm’s remarks, all the more reprehensible because Gramm and his wife created much of the mess the economy is in today. His remarks have gotten some attention, but not the same media firestorm that Obama’s “bitter” remarks did (and Obama was making the opposite point about the economy). Gramm’s a bit like an arsonist, scolding the family whose house he’s just burnt down, telling them they’ve got nothing to complain about (and besides, their furnishings were awfully tacky).

Good for Gorrell, too. The thing is, as Bill Scher points out at the Campaign for America’s Future, Phil Gramm is conservatism. Really. Also in contrast with Obama’s bitter remarks, conservatives have mostly rushed to agree with Gramm (the McCain campaign at first stood by Gramm’s remarks, then disowned them, while at other times, McCain’s said similar things). Yes, “Dr. Phil” has been backed by Fred Barnes, Sean Hannity, George Will, and George Bush himself, who contradicted his own Fed Chairman on that point (and there’s more, although now Gramm is resigning, however reluctantly, and perhaps because of another scandal as well.)

 

JOHN McCAIN

Yup, that’s why holding a “Bush = McCain” sign can get you a ticket from a cop ignorant of civil rights.

Stantis gets in a good dig on McCain here. However, in contrast to several months ago, conservative cartoonists - like other conservatives - just aren’t criticizing McCain as they used to. Message discipline. Whatever their private feelings, I’d be surprised if this trend didn’t continue - perhaps not many pro-McCain cartoons, but not many negative ones, and many, many more anti-Obama pieces.

 

THE ECONOMY

The dollar’s slump has been extremely bad…

…and Stantis, at least, sees how that can spiral.

A striking cartoon by Varvel!

And not a bad gag here, either.

As we’ve noted before, this is one of a few issues where conservatives can turn populist. There’s a lot of anxiety out there about the economy…

 

ENERGY

…not to mention, energy prices.

Ah, those homely hippies who hate cheap gas! (”Hug a whale, harpoon a baby” is sorta funny slander, though.) We debunked this in greater detail in the previous installment, but briefly: Bush’s proposals are an attempt to blame Democrats for high gas costs, despite his own grave culpability; gas prices would not be helped for several years; the oil companies already have hundreds of drilling leases they’re not using. This is a - well, I’d say it’s Shell-Mobil-Exxon game, but that’s a bit obvious. I will pass on Naomi Klein speaking about the Shock Doctrine and the off-shore drilling scam on Democracy Now and the Fox Business Channel (it’s quite the contrast).

Did you know? Driving in a car for a couple of days to an amusement park for personal pleasure is the same thing as taking 5-10 years to pemanently despoil an environmental area for a finite amount of resources to try to stave off fixing our energy policies. Never mind, either, that oil companies could just start now to drill on the land they already have. (Bad analogies are the death of attempts at ye olde reductio ad absurdum.)

In Asay’s world, the government is to blame for all high gas costs (well, he’s got a point, but not how he means), oil companies never price-gouge and always pass on the savings to customers, most of all in the summer. Asay’s world is a happy place. (Well, apart from the dangerous roaming hippies and teenagers that need to be scared off with firearms.)

An odd but sorta funny cartoon. (Bok sure likes polar bear gags.)

Speaking of gouging…

Many cartoonists went with some version of this theme.

A clever design by Payne. (Update: The cartoon is by Robert Ariail. It was misfiled with some Payne cartoons on a site. I thought the style looked different, but the signature should have tipped me off…D’oh! Thanks to a commenter.)

Cheney claimed China was drilling for oil off the coast of Cuba in a speech on Wednesday, June 11th, citing it as a reason America should also engage in off-shore drilling. Guess what? It’s not true. Cheney’s office admitted the error the next day, and several newspapers picked up the falsehood and correction by the 13th. Despite this, as Talking Points Memo, Mother Jones and Crooks and Liars have documented, many conservatives are still hawking this falsehood, including Michael Ramirez here in a 6-16-08 cartoon - although his quotation marks seem to be an attempt to save Cheney’s poor suggestion that off-shore drilling is the way to go.

Ramirez doesn’t even bother to use quotations here for a cartoon running on 6-25. Ah, hackdom. This cartoon is sorta clever, I guess, although in addition to spreading myths about China and Cuba, and corporations being ‘jes folks’ or something, Ramirez is sounding the alarm about oil barons possibly going to jail. Contrast that with his earlier accusation that Justice Kennedy was killing American troops with the Gitmo habeas decision, because somehow terrorists would be freed (they wouldn’t be), while ignoring that there are innocent people there who might finally freed. A funny sense of justice.

 

THE ENVIRONMENT

If you didn’t already know, Henry Payne hates Al Gore. Good thing that it’s only really some diehard conservatives who no longer believe in global warming (of course, still others pretend not to believe for business reasons).

Let’s grant that Ramirez, while very hawkish and not an environmentalist, is trying to make a funny here, and not saying, “Oh my god! We need to kill all the whales, or else the dread Chinese navy will come and destroy us!!!”

 

GAY MARRIAGE

Right-wing cartoons are so educational. For instance, I never knew legalizing gay marriage meant straight men would be forced to marry gay men (burly, bearded, cross-dressing gay men, at that). It looks like Californians will be voting on this in November, actually. And one more point - those gay people are voters, too.

If you don’t want a gay marriage, don’t get one. Jeez.

 

JESSE HELMS

Oh, this time Jesse Helms is the one responsible for defeating the Soviet Union! This tribute is a little odd coming from Payne, who typically praises MLK and the Civil Rights Movement. I don’t advocate dancing on anyone’s grave, but also think history and obituaries should be accurate rather than whitewashed. Why skirt around Helms’ bigotry when he himself was so proud of it, and unlike figures like George Wallace, never repented of it?

 

GEORGE CARLIN

Jeez. Stantis’ God apparently doesn’t have a sense of humor…

…Although Catalino puts Carlin in hell! Somehow, looking at these two cartoonists’ reactions, seven words come to mind.

Well, at least Holbert manages to be much more salutary. As Roy Edroso put it, “Like Voltaire, Mencken, et alia, Carlin died out of the good graces of the bullshit merchants. I guess they knew he was driving away some of their customers.”

 

MISCELLANEOUS

Yes, in Eric Allie’s world, Hollywood studios are run by communists (hahaahahaha!) and liberals cheer on kidnappings and six and half years of imprisonment for citizens, most of if they’re reform-oriented politicians. That’s in fact why low-profile outlets like HBO featured a documentary about Ingrid Betancourt, and why the filmmakers (one of whom I’ve met, actually) tirelessly pushed for more exposure for this story and action by the French, American and Columbian governments. (You know, Allie’s entitled to his juvenile opinions, real or feigned though they may be, but jeez, what a wanker.)

A few cartoonists went with similar gags…

…And Stantis’ ain’t bad.

Good gag (although I think the newspaper headline is unnecessary and ruins the punchline a bit).

Where has the over-priced coffee gone? Long time passing…

Not bad from Payne…

and pretty good from Holbert…

…And Gary Varvel.

 

BONUS SECTION: THE NEW YORKER COVER

(Click here for a slightly larger view.)

My first thought on seeing the cover was that apart from the artwork style and the magazine featuring it, this was pretty much the same sort of piece Right-Wing Cartoon Watch dissects all the time. So far, here’s what I’ve seen from our usual gang:

Asay’s pro-cartoonist, but also suggests The New Yorker intended to offend people.

Meanwhile, predictably, McCoy mocks those offended and those who support Obama.

Benson seems to dislike both smears and excessive praise.

Bok provides handy signs (although they just might make budding deconstructionist, sophomore heads explode). His attitude was fairly common among conservatives.

Meanwhile, Ramirez offers quite the irony-laden piece as well, intentional, unintentional and with an attempt at deniability, methinks. To be fair to Ramirez, his typical stance is not that Obama deliberately sides with terrorists, but that Obama and other liberals are stupid dupes - although the distinction is pretty fine and at times may be moot - case in point. Of course, no one threatened to kill anyone over the New Yorker cartoon, unlike the Danish Muhammad cartoons, as ridiculous as that whole affair was. And surely we all know that Ramirez would never compare a prominent Democrat (in this case one falsely accused of being a Muslim, since conservatives view that as a smear) of being on the same side as an angry, zealous, anti-American Muslim mob, would he?

Unsurprisingly, other cartoonists also weighed in, including:

David Horsey.

Tom Toles.

Ann Telnaes made an animation spoofing the media on this, Tom Tomorrow has a sharp take, and Ruben Bolling wrote several good posts on the subject (one, two, three and four).

I’ll also link Mike Gerber, Bob Somerby, Digby, Sadly, No, Roy Edroso, John Cole, The Editors, BAGNewsNotes, Jon Swift and The Daily Show on this, although there’s plenty more.

I have mixed feelings on the New Yorker cartoon. Personally, I don’t think it works well as satire, for many of the reasons Gerber, Toles and Bolling outline. However, the “Karl Rove’s thought balloon” suggestions would be too on the nose and kill the gag - in this case, at least (Tom Tomorrow’s piece shows this well). Somerby raises issues about editor Remnick being a hack in the past, and Digby also makes several serious points. As the Sadly, No post shows, it’s no surprise that some conservatives said ‘It’s the truth!’… not that people that dumb and/or bigoted were ever going to be won over, anyway. As to claims from some conservatives that their side hasn’t been smearing Obama in this fashion (no, really), just check out the links in the S,N post and the rest from our blurb on Asay’s “Obama racism” cartoon. These particular conservatives are either delusional or completely full of crap. I do think the media reaction was waaay overblown (best captured by The Daily Show). But then, they’re a shallow folk who don’t like to discuss policy, and the whole thing may eventually work in Obama’s favor, in that they’re feel obligated to smack down smears. Obviously, The New Yorker has every right to run the cartoon. Those who feel it was a poor choice have every right to write in to complain. They also have the right to cancel their subscriptions, as I’ve seen a few people threaten, although that seems wildly out of proportion to me. But it’s a free country. Obviously, humor is in large part subjective, and dissecting cartoons at length, especially unfunny ones depicting right-wing smears, is a silly endeavor fraught with difficulty and a colossal waste of time. Um, I mean…

 

Well, that’s it for this time! (I’m going to continue to try to make these much shorter and more frequent. Like, um, a headache.)

Editorial cartooning is a fine American tradition, and 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.

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