Attitude Presents: Neil Swaab!

The new Attitude series brings out its second tome in the series dedicated to up-and-coming cartoonists whose work deserves wider exposure because it’s so much better than almost everything else in print: this time it’s
Attitude Presents: Neil Swaab’s “Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles”. “Rehabilitating Mr. Wiggles” features the demented adventures and observations of a murderous pedophile who happens to be a sweet, cuddly teddy bear, and his sidekick who bears a startling resemblance to a certain cartoonist. It’s the kind of strip that makes you nervous as hell because its humor is so daring and out there, but I have yet to meet anyone who didn’t find it hilarious. Click on the link above to order your advance copy (publication date is officially in August, though there should be books in July); I personally guarantee that you won’t go wrong.

Third in the “Attitude Presents” series will be one of cartooning’s best-kept secrets, brilliant political cartoonist Stephanie McMillan.

Editor & Publisher on the Challenge

Editor & Publisher magazine covers the postscript to the Right-Wing Challenge.

Speaking of blogs, Doug writes:

It seems to me you miss the point of bloggers entirely. Can you clarify and support your opinions by answering a few questions? Why is it when blogger question the establishment that is the mainstream media, they are like McCarthy? It seems your article casts you in the role of McCarthy as you find people who don’t think like you; believe opposite of you, and yet you have to disparage and discredit them. The Senator would be proud of you.

Hardly. I don’t have any problem with the conservative orientation of many bloggers; my critique concerns their methods, lack of accountability and intellectual dishonesty. Like their Lord Bush, they throw a lot of shit at the wall in the hope that some of it sticks. A search for the truth can be ideologically informed, but almost every right-wing blogger I’ve read ignores inconvenient truths while spinning the others out of context to make their side look better. The specific McCarthy reference relates to the desire of right-wingers not to engage their left-wing counterparts in constructive back-and-forth, but to shut them up, and even get them fired from their jobs, thus depriving the left of their spokespeople.

How can a champion of free speech like yourself look at blogs and say I thought blogs were good until I read them? Free speech is free speech is free speech. Every one has the right to say what they want if you don’t agree with it, tough. You get to spread your elitist message, they can spread there conservative message. It seems that what you a really rallying against is the fact that these folks make you work harder by forcing you to check facts (when and if you ever use them).

I check my facts in each and every column. Sometimes I make errors, and when I do I issue corrections and retractions. When do you see bloggers do that? If they did, every warblog would have to run 72-point type every day saying, “Oh, by the way, we were wrong. Bush did lie about WMDs.” But they don’t.

As an aside what do think that PETA activists were our throwing red paint of people in fur coats? Here’s an example of activists actually being violent, not just expressing the desire for violence. Do you condemn PETA as much as you condemn the right wing bloggers?

Um, no. Losing a fur coat never killed anyone. It’s just property, and ill-gotten property at that. But right-wing bloggers are cowing the media that is the cornerstone of our democratic system.

How do you know bloggers are uneducated?

Just read them. They have virtually zero knowledge of history, for example.

Do you have statistics of this? I doubt it. I read quite a bit, and what is interesting is in conservative books/blogs I read references to sources and supporting documents are common. In liberal literature however, it is rare to see any reference to supporting documentation. Why is this? If you make bold statements, back them up with real honest to gosh facts that can be verified. Even though you write an editorial, don’t you think you should back up your opinion with facts? Or are fact little things that just get in your way?

Please remember that my weekly opinion column is for newspapers, which don’t have links. If someone wants to pay me to produce a separate version with links, I would love to do so. Until then, this blog is all the free work I can stand. Besides, if you want to find my quotes, run them through Google. Odds are that they’ll turn up.

It seems you are failing to rise to the challenge the Red States are presenting you. Please challenge conservatives with ideas, logic and facts. Or are you not up to the challenge?

Oh, please. I’ve spilled hundreds of thousands of words of ideas, logic and facts since Bush stole his first election. It’s not up to me to repeat them.

Bush and Hitler, Redux

Alex adds:

2.) Hitler never smoked or drank.
4.) Hitler organized the Nazis personally.

But Jennifer subtracts:

sorry to nitpick on a theme you’re probably getting tired of, but I’d read before that Hitler wasn’t a vegetarian and just wanted to clarify before you get accused of spreading urban legends:
http://www.veg.ca/newsletr/mayjun96/hitler.html

Thankfully, FOR Alex saves the day:

Just a heads up, so that Rush Limbaugh doesn’t cite onelittle error and by inference conclude the rest of everything you’ve even written is completely wrong. Hitler wasn’t a vegetarian. That was propaganda. Thank God we don’t have propaganda in politics now.

A couple other Hitler comparisons you missed:

Hitler actually went to jail.

Hitler actually wrote (and could read) a book.

Hitler, just like Saddam, won elections back when you had to do the vote rigging by hand. None of these fancy computer tricks.

Hitler’s dad didn’t get his advisers to make Hitler dictator.

Hitler actually had to work for a living before he went into politics.

Hitler took a struggling country and brought it to the brink of global dominance. Bush took a robust economy and drove it into the ground.

When a group attacked Hitler, he wiped out their village, not the one three miles down the road that had nothing to do with it.

And Because You Dig the Hate Mail

SirRosis675@aol.com scrode:

Ted Rall is a cock-licking Commie who is outraged when the bloggers deviate from the Little Red Book. I hope this new wave of HIV wipes him out. Fist fucking liberals deserve the Belsen treatment. All the best, Sir Rosis