Be thou an honest pro-war cartoon?
Dirk “Diogenes” Deppey over at ¡Journalista! is combing the marketplace, raising his lantern high: he’s looking for a single recent pro-war editorial cartoon, and can’t think of a one. —Myself, I figured this was a gimme: I cunningly expanded the definition of “editorial cartoon” to include that bulwark of the underdog conservative, Mallard Fillmore, held my nose, and went trawling through the past month or so of strips. Figuring, you know, what with a January full of aluminum tubes and material breaches and troops standing tall to defend the American Way and Dr. Blix’ report to the UN chastising Saddam, surely the duck would have something to say.
Well, I found a lot of Trent Lott jokes. (Apparently, Mr. Tinsley is still bitter over the whole affair.)
I did find two strips that could be construed as pro-war, in that one asserts Saddam is merrily working away at nuclear weaponry (even as it tags Bush for pronouncing “nuclear” as “newkewlar,” and can I just stop a moment and roll my eyes at this, whether it comes from the left or the right? I mean, say “comfortable,” so I can more likely than not razz you for saying “comfterbul”), while the other is anti- those who are anti-war, which, I suppose, makes it pro-war. Objectively speaking.
But this is weak fodder, especially since arguing that Mallard Fillmore is an editorial cartoon is strictly speaking a bit of a stretch. —Anyway. Rack your brains and comb your papers and email whatever you find to Dirk. There must be some out there. Right?
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I have seen a lot of anti-Saddam cartoons, and I'm pretty sure I've seen some critical of anti-war protesters. But nothing explicitly calling for war against Iraq (or even Saddam.)
The problem there may be that political cartooning rarely advocates a position, preferring to criticize the shortcomings of other positions. Making fun of someone or something provides an easy punchline. As the shuttle tragedy demonstrates, political cartoonists (even irreverent ones like yours truly) will deviate from the mandate to be funny. But even there one isn't advocating, just mourning (another thing political cartoonists like to do; cf. tributes to Mauldin, Hirschfeld, George Harrison, etc.)
Add to that that it seems only hard lefty toonists are willing to eschew humor for the sake of advocacy, didacticism, criticism, outrage, etc. Yet overall, we're not a very violent bunch.
Short, shameful confession:
I kinda chuckled at Prediction #65.
can I just stop a moment and roll my eyes at this, whether it comes from the left or the right?
Well said! I've recently bitched about that myself.
GW's "new-kewlar" pronunciation is a conscious political choice to distinguish himself from the fussbudgets who pronounce it correctly and thus to ally himself as another of the "reg'lar folks." Fresh Air's linguist Geoffrey Nunberg persuasively argued that point a couple months ago. He noted that it is common for Pentagon military strategists to use the pronunciation when discussing nuclear weapons and disarmament, but not when discussing nuclear energy and physics. Moreover, GW's Ivy League education and New England pedigree would offer numerous opportunities for correction. But then, he always did prefer Texas more than his carpet-bagging daddy.
thus to ally himself as another of the "reg'lar folks."
woops. That's two separate thoughts mangled together. "Ally himself with 're'lar folks'" and "identify himself as another of the 'reg'lar folk'"—but you catch my drift.
Oh, and for fun, I found the link to Nunberg's essay: http://www-csli.stanford.edu/~nunberg/nucular.html