Political Cartoons

I thought this editorial a little hypocritical and pointless.

I composed the following letter to the editor, but decided it was too long and a little pointless itself:

I notice that the Deseret News didn't publish the cartoons that caused all the trouble for the Danes. Wouldn't want to be "insensitive" or suggest that Muslims are hypocrites when they portray Jews as pigs, monkeys and murderers and the U.S. as the Great Satan. They might blow up your building. Those third-worlders just can't be expected to understand freedom of the press can they?

And those quadruple amputees who sacrificed limbs for their country, what's the matter? Can't they take a joke? Gee, from the way the Democrats talked about Max Cleland, the loss of a few limbs should have immunized him from any disagreement, just as Cindy Sheehan's loss of her son gives her "absolute moral authority" in the words of Maureen Dowd, who major suffering in life was from lasik surgery.

Yes, political debate gets pretty nasty at times. As you wrote: "a cartoonist for the Washington Post used a caricature of a dismembered U.S. soldier to make a point about the war. It was a ham-handed way to send a message. In fact, the only thing more ham-handed was the letter the Joint Chiefs of Staff sent to the Post in protest. Anyone who knows a lick about the media knows that was a quick way to guarantee more of the same."

And anyone who knows a lick about media hubris and self-justification knows why newspapers and broadcast news networks are losing money, readers and audience. As the old saying goes, don't dish it out if you can't take it.

I have an idea for a political cartoon. It has a dinosaur with the tag "news media." . . .

I think what bothers me about the editorial is that it misses two points: (1) The Muslims who are burning embassies and going ballistic don't deserve to be defended, because they are guilty of much worse in their own belief that the rest of the world owes them some kind of reverence. The rage and violence are exactly what brought on these cartoons in the first place. All they're doing is confirming the impression that Mohammed taught hate and terrorism. (2) Tom Toles doesn't deserve to be above criticism nor the media the right to wave away complaints with "That was a quick way to guarantee more of the same." To defend Tom Toles' nasty little insult of the Pentagon as cold and uncaring about those who have sacrificed so much in the line of duty, as just asking for more of the same, is the reason why the media in this country are becoming as nauseating as the Arab street who would tear down civilization because they can't keep up.

Why I'm not a libertarian

About the offensive cartoon, just because you have the legal right to say something doesn't mean you should say it. Nor does it entitle you to be above criticism. A lot of European Muslims have made fools of themselves over piggy banks and the graphics on ice cream lids, just as a lot of Catholics have claiming the image of Mary on a hotcake, or a cut tree limb as miracles, but that's no reason to abuse their beliefs.

Personally, I believe that terrorism is a greater blasphemy than a picture of Mohammed. All three religions should remember the scripture about "making a man an offender for a word" or a drawing. I think that the people leading these riots over the Danish cartoons are evil men who wouldn't know Allah from the man in the moon, but they're like nature. You don't go poking a bear with a sharp stick just because you dislike its bad temper.

Nice agenda if you can get it.

The big suspense about the State of the Union address was whether Cindy Sheehan would get a chance to stand up in the chamber and try to embarrass the president with more of her shilling for the Moonbat Left. It all appears to have been choreographed, complete with blogads for a "Free Cindy" fundraising scheme. She wasn't actually thrown in jail, but she did violate the rules against political demonstrations in the building by wearing an anti-Bush tee-shirt and was not allowed to be seated.

Bush's speech was, like every other SOTU, great if you're in the President's party and dull and predictable if you're not. As advertised, he made some bold proposals, but you can promise the moon when it's the Congress that has to deliver. You can almost see his words being twisted as they come out of his mouth.

If it weren't for the opportunity for free air time, I'd just as soon read it or watch it on video without all the cheering and interruptions. I agree with just about everything he said, but I'm not convinced that anything will be done about entitlements or that it is scientifically feasible to wean us from cheap oil, except by making it expensive. His shopping list of spending on alternate energy sounds like pie in the sky, except for nuclear energy, which the Democrats oppose more strongly than they did Justice Alito.

The cloture vote on the Alito nomination is underway.

Kerry has had his rant. Teddy Kennedy has had his tantrum. Now, the question is, will the Senate act or continue to dither and allow itself to be held hostage to the ugliness of radicalism.

The cloture motion is passed 72 to 25. The vote to confirm Mr. Alito will be taken tomorrow morning. Enough Democrats have recognized the futility and counterproductivity of mere obstructionism to block a filibuster. Now all they need is to come up with something they can support, not merely oppose.

Maybe it should be called "the Ministry of Truth"

Wikipedia, that is. It makes one wonder how naive people can get. Like the engineers who created the internet, who just assumed that the people using it would only do so out of altruistic purposes, and what harm could a little pornography and fraud really do?

Wikipedia was based on a silly idea, that the latest edit is most likely to be more true and complete. Come on! This is the human race we're talking about.

I still like Wikipedia because it has entries on all kinds of stuff, but it has to pass the smell test. You kind of expect entries on famous people and politicians to be negative, so a positive story gets your BS detector clicking.

And the horse you rode in on.

What I said about Washington and politicians goes double for "journalists", i.e. reporters who think they're better than the people they serve and report on.

Cathy Seipp is right. It stinks. The whole press these days has such a whiff of condescension and arrogance that you'd think the fish came wrapped in it.

This is why I don't think any conviction can ever be won on a prosecution like that against Scooter Libby. You can never prove that the reporters didn't get the story from the "innocent" victim whose cover has been blown.

Fundraiser

That is apparently what "filibuster" means to the likes of John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Schumer, Durbin, etc. It's a fairly painless way to prove that you're the loyal political factotum of the radical feminist, anti-war and mostly anti-Bush groups who have all the money. If you're career was based on your name, or your liberal bonafides, you wouldn't want them to think you've sold out. Of course, being feckless doesn't seem to bother them. They have all kinds of money and don't seem to think they have to persuade anybody, so if you act like you're as nuts as Kos, et al., the hope is that they'll keep giving you money. You'd think they'd be realizing that they're getting very little in the way of results and start trying to find other ways to make their dollars accomplish something, but then, if they were pragmatic, they'd be conservatives.

Conservatives on the other hand, have to be as pure as Caesar's wife. Tom Delay began to resemble a moral Al Capone when his justification became "The Democrats do it all the time." What he failed to remember is that the Democrats are in the minority and they have the MSM on their side. Two things can destroy a person in politics: money and the "friends" who give him money. It's those sweet "little" perks that annoy voters who aren't millionaires. They see a Congressman playing at celebrity golf tournaments and think, "I can't do that. Why does he get to?" The free trips, the banquets and dinners, the sky boxes, etc. may seem just friendliness to you, but we out here in the unwashed masses see it as selling your vote to that guy in the black trench coat and broad-brim hat. Washington D.C. is not Peoria and it's sure as heck not Orangeville, Utah.