Normally, when faced with a blatantly neo-conservative viewpoint, I am able to take it for the misguided propaganda that it is and move on.
Until yesterday.
I opened my local newspaper to the editorial page and came face to face with this cartoon!
Mike Shelton is a conservative editorial cartoonist for the Orange County (CA) Register. I’ve seen several of his cartoons, and normally I can just dismiss them for the neo-con bullshit that they are. But this …
Words fail me. This is so absolutely offensive on more levels than pellets Cheney shot into his friend! I have news for you, FUCKHEAD: over 3,000 of our brave men and women have already “died in vain” due to the reckless actions of the current Commander-in-Chief and the right-wing power structure pulling his strings; using their sacrifice to denounce a political opponent is Swiftboating of the worst possible kind.
I don’t believe in Hell, but if I’m wrong about that, I hope the most putrid, vomit-inducing, shit-laden level is reserved for you!
You are aware that in the first weekend of February, Senator Obama was quoted in New Hampshire that
?
This statement has seriously offended a number of folks on the Right, so it is not an out-of-the-blue shot at the senator’s person or politics, but is taken from an (overdeveloped) sense of outrage at his own words.
It is a blatantly political (cheap) shot at the words of a politician. Good or bad, that is what these guys do for a living. When we like it, we laugh uproariously and when we do not, we condemn them. Some chap shots are worse than others and get general condemnation, (and a few brilliant stikes get recognized even by their targets and supporters), but most efforts are met partisan reactions.
(I am guessing that want2know was unaware of the history behind the cartoon, so I am not presupposing purely partisan reaction on his part.)
“Waste” is a perfect word for this fiasco. I’m boggled at why it would be offensive. They were sent where they had no business being, and they were killed. Lives. Wasted.
FWIW, I’m one of the board’s token conservatives, and I didn’t like the cartoon. It didn’t seem to make the point terribly well.
Through no fault of their own, most people would have to have the backstory explained to them, as was demonstrated in this thread. That makes for a bad cartoon.
There are certain political conventions that you violate at your peril, and one of those is that the war dead are always respected and honored. Throwing words like “waste” around risks people thinking that you don’t respect this kind of sacrifice.
Don’t get me wrong. I honor those war dead immensely. They have my undying respect for do what they do and did. I lay the term “waste” at the feet of those who sent them there…which includes myself, as I initially thought the war in Iraq might be a good idea. I am deeply ashamed of myself for falling for the early propaganda.
I’m completely baffled as to how anyone can think that calling 3000 **unnecessary ** deaths a waste is somehow disrespectful, simply because they were soldiers. If 3000 people die in a fire, is it disrespectful to call it a waste?
I respect a soldier’s decision to accept risk to his life. I respect his sacrifice if his life is what his decision costs him. But if he should never have been there to begin with, his death was a waste.
This puzzles me. Obama didn’t say that their lives were a waste. He said that they were wasted, as in squandered, needlessly lost, unnecessarily ended. I don’t see how that could possibly be construed as an insult.
Suppose I had a glass of scotch that cost a good $4000 per bottle. While carrying it to my easy chair I lose control of the glass and drop it on the floor. If I say that that scotch was wasted, am I saying that it was probably no good to begin with? Or would you have me honor it by saying “My, that was delicious”?
ETA: If I say it was wasted, any thinking person would understand that I was sad that I lost a valued beverage. To interpret it as my denigrating the drink would be to purposely and obtusely put words in my mouth, so to speak.
Sure, but I will never apologize. It lessens my respect for Obama that he did. Would it make him unelectable? Maybe, but he’d certainly have the votes of people like me if he stood behind his words.
Their lives were wasted by Bush, not by themselves. The word is apt, if easily twisted by apes.
I saw another cartoon, which I can’t track down for link, of Osama bin Laden wearing a big grin and an Obama campaign button. As a conservative congressman or senator once said to Bill Clinton (sorry, again no cite; it was in Clinton’s book and he didn’t name the speaker), “The right *has *to fight dirty. When we fight fair, the Democrats win.” Paraphrased from memory, but still probably the most chilling bit of political rhetoric I’ve ever heard.
Or that he thinks those lives were wasted by the U.S. Government. Which is a wholly defensible position that doesn’t require deliberately assigning the worst possible motives to Senator Obama. But that wouldn’t allow us to smear him, I suppose.
I was unaware of Sen Obama’s statement (shame on me). It explains the context of the cartoon; however, it doesn’t even begin to excuse it. It was terrible, cheap and offensive.
Sure that’s possible, even likely, but if your personal bent is toward ‘war at any cost’, you’re not going to see how that part of the dictionary might apply to Obama’s words.
The war isn’t a waste, it’s an essential and ineluctable march to victory and all, dont’cha know?
I don’t think that Mr. Moto is arguing that Obama thought that the deaths were a waste. What I believe he’s saying is that it would be highly impolitic to use the term “wasted” and “dead solidiers” in the same sentence because it’s so easily misinterpreted by the public and twisted by spin doctors.
To be a little less subtle, NO THEY DO NOT unless you’re deliberately trying to smear Senator Obama by misinterpreting his words. They demonstrate what Senator Obama thinks of the war.
Implying that Senator Obama’s quote demonstrates what he things of the soldiers, as Mr. Moto has done, itself is a misrepresentation of Senator Obama’s remarks and further feeds the more reprehensible smears by others. Mr. Moto is just being indirect about it.
