CSotD: An Embarrassment of Riches
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Ann Telnaes sets today's mood, and, while riffing on the Presidential seal is hardly revolutionary, this is the right moment and a good job, and she makes a statement that covers much that is being said.
The other reason to have her lead off is that she's the current president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and I'm going to talk more about editing and fairness today than about the issue under consideration.
Except that I think it's just plain weird to keep hearing how terrible it was for a handful of counterprotesters to stand up to armed Nazis, when all these well-reasoned, patient explanations are coming from the same people who, just a few years ago, were delicately explaining why it was okay for a fellow with a gun to shoot and kill a kid who had Skittles and iced tea.
But decent people get it, and if Andrew Coyne's column in the National Post doesn't lay it out in a way you can understand, there's nothing I can say that will make a difference either. Nor will you be swayed by any of the cartoons here today. And that's on you.
However, one of the challenges of journalism is that you always collect more information than you can use, and that a good interview leaves you nearly weeping over the decision of what you must leave out of your story.
Fresh Air may sound live and spontaneous, but it is meticulously edited, which is part of why Terry Gross is the best in the business.
I have set myself a limit of 1,000 words, which is brief enough to keep things readable and yet generous enough that the volume of commentary qualifies it as "fair use" of copyrighted material.
I also link to the artists' or syndicate overall sites rather than to the specific cartoons, in hopes that readers will begin to follow good cartoonists regularly.
That said, I'm more comfortable with days when I cite a couple of cartoons than days when they kind of pile up. I am not trying to be an aggregator and I don't think much of people who simply hijack cartoons for the sake of traffic, because, as a creator myself, I think those amateur syndicators should be getting cease & desist orders, but I'm afraid that might inspire someone to send me one.
(Cartoonists: You have only to ask to be excluded. I've had one such request. You'll never see his work here.)
Blah blah blah. Show us some freakin' cartoons.
The reason I bring this all up is that yesterday afternoon, I took a break to check out Twitter and saw a good cartoon, and then another, and thought, "Hey, great! I'll have stuff for tomorrow morning!"
And then another and another and another and I'm glad the crisis has inspired everyone but slow the hell down, will you?
I've got more good cartoons than I can justify using, so, if you don't have a GoComics and Comics Kingdom subscription, well, this is the day you suffer for that. They aren't expensive and if you like cartoons enough to come here, you ought to be willing to spend a little money there.
But here's a sample of what I came across:
I had a choice of several D-Day themed anti-Nazi pieces more or less along this line, but Tom Toles made the best use of the comparison.
He rises above the crowd by not simply depicting the D-Day landings but by including the other invasions: The southern one that didn't make for dramatic photos but that sure did drive a lot of Nazis back to der Vaterland, the tragic-but-crucial one at Dieppe, and the one by them Communists, which we were never taught about in school.
By using the map instead of the beach, he cites the threat much more emphatically. As my mother once reminded me, "You have to remember that, at the time, we didn't know who was going to win."
An admonition that has certainly become more easy to identify with in the past week, and which Toles' approach conjures.
I was also greatly pleased with Dan Wasserman's piece, which mocks the pathological ignorance of a man who is either purposely turning his back on the facts or is simply too goddam stupid to check them out.
My greatest contempt for political cartoonists is not for those with whom I disagree on policy, but those who are content to illustrate talk radio blather without bothering to find out if it has any rational basis.
Double that for politicians who are willing to believe obvious, contemptible lies and self-serving arguments the illogic of which would not get past a four-year-old.
In this case, perhaps there were people who joined the march simply to protect symbols of Southern heritage. But they were too dumb or too lazy to listen to the conversation about removal and realize that the statues are about segregation, not the war, and they must also have ignored the tone of the information promoting the march, and then deaf to the chants of their fellow marchers.
Nobody that sincerely stupid could have read a map or a calendar well enough to find themselves in Charlotteville on the correct date.
Much less sitting behind a desk in the Oval Office.
And Gary Varvel points out that there are intelligent people among conservatives.
I wish they were faster, and had stiffer spines, but I suspect he does, too.
Though, as Bob Englehart notes, not everyone greeted the President's rebuttal of his rebuttal of his rebuttal with dismay.
A decent man would be horrified by this praise, but, then, a decent man wouldn't garner it.
Sigh. Love Damien Glez's take on Zuckerman's response. Zorro was one of my boyhood heroes.
But I've posted five already and hit my 1,000 word limit.
You should see the ones that didn't make the cut.
No, you should. Get those GoComics/Comics Kingdom subscriptions.
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