Categorical Aperitif

Sir:

Your cartoon of 8/23/07 crossed my path recently:

Do I interpret this correctly? Are you suggesting that Democrats are praying for "defeat" in Iraq? Given the political slant of many of your cartoons (see, e.g, my previous open letter to you), this is the first interpretation that occurs to me; however, there are some features here that make me wonder whether you intended some other meaning. Let's review them.

The first problem is with the central feature of the cartoon. At first glance I took this to be a donkey praying for "defeat," and since the donkey is the standard symbol for the Democratic Party, well, the interpretation above obviously follows. Looking at the figure more closely, though, I note that it looks at least as much like a horse—or even a camel. Since the camel is traditionally associated with, um, more Muslim parts of the world, could it be that this is actually meant to be a terrorist praying for "defeat"? The odd archaism of having the thing wearing pajamas with an open butt-flap does not lend support to either interpretation, as neither donkeys nor camels commonly wear such garb; alas, I am bereft of hermeneutical assistance from the sartorial quarter. But then few Americans alive today have probably ever seen such pajamas outside of old movies, TV shows, and, yes, very, very, very old comic strips, so it's not like a modern-day Democrat would be likely to wear them, either. I am forced to wonder: what's with the pajamas? Were you afraid that without some crackage, your cartoon would lack the requisite pith and import?

The second problem involves the fact that the central figure seems to be praying. If indeed the central figure is meant to be a donkey, and hence to represent Democrats, then two obvious implications follow: (a) Democrats pray, and (b) Democrats believe in God. But these are obviously in conflict with the standard Republican caricature of the Democrats as the party of atheism, irreverence, impiety, etc. Having seem some of your past work, I find it hard to believe that you would so blithely violate a standard Republican trope. For that matter, I'm fairly confident that if I poked around long enough in your archives, I'd probably run across a cartoon wherein a leering, menacing donkey (though it might also be a horse or a camel) bedecked in Roman armor gleefully pokes a crucified Republican Jesus in the side with a spear, or perhaps one where a bejeweled, hooknosed donkey Caiaphas sneeringly denounces Christ before a Pontius Pilate who looks kind of like John Kerry (thought it might also be a horse or a camel). So aside from the problem of being sure that what you've depicted here is a donkey, I face the added problem of interpreting its posture. It seems to be praying, but surely you would not want to imply that a Democrat might be something other than an implacable foe of the Almighty. So my perplexity grows.

Finally, there's the other main feature which contributes to the "Democrats are praying for defeat in Iraq" interpretation: the newspaper with the "Surge Showing Results" headline lying like an afterthought on the floor. Really, the placement of the newspaper is interesting: it's almost out of the frame, way over to the side of the cartoon—almost like you're embarrassed about it. Could this be your subconscious way of acknowledging that there is no good reason to think that the much-vaunted "surge" of a few thousand more troops into Iraq was ever likely to make any serious difference in this war-that-should-never-have-been-launched-in-the-first-place and that "news reports" of the surge's success are little but shameless consent-manufacturing exercises like the recent O'Hanlon-Pollack op-ed and dog-and-pony show? I mean, if you were more confident that reports of the surge's success were not greatly exaggerated, why not put the newspaper front-and-center, on the bed right in front of the donkey/horse/camel thing, thus suggesting even more strongly that, in the face of impending vindication for the Bush Administration's already-longer-than-World-War-II war, the Bush-hating Democrat has turned to his last refuge and is petitioning the Lord with prayer—and for his own country to lose, no less? This would reduce at least some of the vagueness and ambiguity in the cartoon—though the species indeterminacy and the archaic pajamas problem remain. And certainly it would be better than leaving the crucial "Surge Showing Results" headline way off to the side, on the floor, where for all the reader knows it's there for a puppy to crap on—which, I confess, is the first use I generally think of for such headlines.

I've probably given this cartoon far more thought than it deserved—or for that matter than went into it—but hopefully, the next time you want to accuse Democrats of treacherous collusion with God in opposition to the war policies of George W. Bush (if indeed that's what you were up to here), you'll at least expend more effort on making the main figure look like a donkey and less on finding a way to put an exposed buttcrack into the finished product. I mean, really: when a half-exposed ass is one of the most lovingly rendered details in a cartoon, one can't help but wonder a little about where the cartoonist's mind really is. Though I have to admit that a pro-war slant and a juvenile ass fixation do kind of go together.

Labels: editorial cartoons

// posted by nash @ 2:22 PM