What a curious juxtaposition between all the brass brims of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apparently having nothing better to do, signing a letter of complaint to the Washington Post about a Tom Toles cartoon lampooning Defense chief Don Rumsfeld, and the recent outbreak of Islamic outrage over some Danish cartoons, one of which depicted the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb on his head.
Each incident came within days of the other and those of us accustomed to pulling back the curtain on President Oz and his Foggy Bottom Boys can't help but assemble some tea leaves for this one.
Even persistent readers of the 'Internets' know that the editorial cartoon is the last bastion in the U.S. media that exhibits whole-hog disrespect for the Powers-That-Be, an irreverence not shared by the genuflectors who write thousand-word editorials for Time, Newsweek, the New York Times and Washington Post.
The written-word editorialists tend to respectfully criticize 'President Bush' with adjectives and verbs that might leave the casual reader with the idea that the mump in the White House is conducting himself as a rational and compassionate human being who just needs a little correction here and there, while the cartoonists define him as the oafish, out-of-control, power-hungry, monkey-man shit-spewer he really is.
With a Pentagon suddenly infused with tough military men turned thin-skinned playwrights, blaming low morale on sketchers such as Toles, to equal a White House teeming with drag-queen sensitivity to caricature and an obsession with petty vengeance -- become more severe since their mutual failures in Iraq and elsewhere -- it's not difficult to discern why the High and Mighty are suddenly focusing on the labors of editorial cartoonists. A picture is worth a thousand words, even a picture with a few words, and, as Mark Twain once said, "Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand."
The other day, the Darwinian regression some insist on calling our president took the opportunity of a question about the Danish cartoon flap to opine that, "With freedom comes responsibility," a formulation veteran Bush-watchers know is attended by the unspoken addendum, "And I define what's responsible."
Those versed in the Dark Arts practiced by our intelligence services over the years of the 'psyops' variety can readily spot the nearly-invisible hand of their involvement in goosing up the Islamic response to the Danish cartoons with the intention of bringing those recalcitrant and tolerant Europeans to the opinion that these Muslims are stone crazy, you can't talk to them, and it's time to invade Iran! (The Bush-decimated U.S. military can't go it alone.) If some tens of thousands of dollars of U.S. taxpayer money was quietly distributed to those crowds in the Arab world to keep them burning flags and denouncing the Great Satan, so be it -- it's in the worthy cause of starting more wars to 'defend' America. And let's not forget that, among the cartoons displayed to Muslim audiences, were drawings that were never published anywhere, such as one of the Prophet depicted as a pig. What office in Washington commissioned that portrait?
Here at home, look for the new neocon catch phrase to be "Responsibility in media," rebroadcast by every news outlet, dutifully uttered ad nauseum by every Republican politician, and likely even adopted by many of the suicidal Democrats. This is also code to editors everywhere to start clamping down on editorial cartoonists who may 'go too far' in criticizing Bush-whackery, the Pentagong Show, or even 'Mr. Rove,' as unctuous 'journalist' Mike Allen of the Washington Post recently referred to Karl in tones of reverent esteem. This means the American editorial cartoon is destined to become as bland as a boiled milk recipe, if these artists want to keep their jobs. (If they don't, the Heritage Foundation no doubt has some ink slingers hanging around available to take up the slack.)
Perhaps Cheney or Rumsfeld will institute a National Cartoon Review Board to check all risible renderings for any possibility that they could sap the strength of our fighting forces in the field. That could be easily expanded to a Homeland Security branch, something like the Bureau of Comedic Drawing Investigations, to make sure that errant doodlers aren't undercutting our Global War Against Whatever Bush and His Cronies Believe is Against Their Interests stateside.
Then it will be complete: All of American media will be looking over its shoulder in the spirit of a properly tamed and 'responsible' adjunct to George's Empire and the U.S. War Machine, and, don't worry, the free-wheeling 'Internets' won't be far behind.
As George Orwell once wrote, "Circus dogs jump when the trainer cracks his whip, but the really well-trained dog is the one that turns his somersault when there is no whip." The newsrooms of America will now have to put down papers even for the cartoonists.
The Tattlesnake hopes that the mass media will resist this further attempt to curtail the activities of a free press and make them servants of the government, but their track record doesn't augur well.
Let's end with two pertinent quotes, the first from Jim Hightower:
"The higher up the ladder the monkey climbs, the more you see of its ugly side."
And more of Twain's timeless wisdom:
"Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense."
One of our last bastions of defense, the irreverent cartoon, is now under assault from the Goons of Oppression and the Theocrats of Doom.
We can only pray to a God of Reason currently out of favor in parts of the Western World, as well as Islam, that they don't succeed.
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Coming to a TV Screen Near You
"Club Homeland Detention: Halliburton, the first corporation into Iraq, contractually speaking, and the biggest financial winner in the 'reconstruction' sweepstakes for that deconstructed country, fortuitously also found itself perched right atop the list of post-Katrina New Orleans reconstruction contractors. Now, through its subsidiary KBR, known for building military bases to last, as well as Guantanamo's infamous 'cages,' Halliburton gets a shot at the real American thing -- actual emergency detention centers for 'immigrants' -- or, hey, in a crisis, for whomever. The Army Corps of Engineers awarded it a contract last month -- though the story only oozed out this week -- worth up to $385 million (not including the near-obligatory overcharges) for, according to the New York Times, 'an unexpected influx of immigrants, to house people in the event of a natural disaster or for new programs that require additional detention space.' It's those 'new programs' that give special pause."
-- Tom Engelhardt, "Bushwhacked in Bushworld," TomDispatch, Feb. 6, 2006.
DAVID GREGORY: "Scott, why is Cindy Sheehan the first detainee in the administration's new National Bird Flu Epidemic Quarantine Processing Center? I understand she doesn't even have the flu."
SCOTT McCLELLAN: "I can't discuss that; it's a matter of national security."
HELEN THOMAS: "Why are the locations of these processing centers being hidden from the public, and why is Ms. Sheehan being held incommunicado?"
SCOTT McCLELLAN: "I've already answered that question. Let's go to...oh, here, Jeff Gannon -- it's good to have you back with us, Jeff -- what's your question?"
JEFF GANNON: "Don't you think that President Bush -- doing the right thing to protect America by detaining anyone possibly infected by the Bird Flu virus -- shouldn't have to put up with all these insulting questions by the media? Doesn't that impress you as being really unpatriotic and over the line to imply that the president would detain people for any other reason than to stop an outbreak of a horrible epidemic in this country?"
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