The Democratic megablog Daily Kos is leading a witch hunt against anti-Obama lefties. They targeted me, using the excuse that my drawings of him were insulting. What would make them happy? Here we go with a new caricature that should make them shut up and go away.
Democrat-Friendly! New and Improved Caricature of Barack Obama
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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I offer a compromise. Perhaps you can draw Obama as a web page that doesn’t load? Or a bunch of dead children blown into bloody pieces by a drone? After all, there really isn’t a lot else to point to from his time in office.
Isn’t the point of a cartoon to amuse, and to make the reader think?
Seems bitter and sad to me… but maybe I just ‘don’t get it.’
It surely is sad ~ though what is sad is the destruction of communities for discussion that used to find a comfortable place at daily kos, surrendered to people in constant campaign mode, loyally attacking any criticism of the President by whatever means available, fair or foul.
. Hilarious!
Maybe the DailyKos dust-up was the best thing that could have happened to you, Ted. Plenty of publicity and a source of potentially endless new cartoon material. Heh. Lemonade from lemons, indeed.
Nice. Another direction (feel free to use it if it’s worthy) is to go the deification route. Clearly, there is no depiction of Obama that liberals are happy with. Much like Muhammed, maybe it is simply unacceptable to generate images of Obama at all without his supporters blasting you.
Of course, do this, and you will be attacked by liberals who think you’re insenuating he’s a Muslim. Ahhh, but that would be worth it, like when Fox News sites The Onion as a reliable source!
Great cartoon Ted.
I find your creative ability to take the sad and bitter reality of ad hominem attacks used to derail discussion of critical social issues, and then restate them in an amusing manner to be one of your strongest abilities.
Keep up the great work.
The Democrats didn’t complain when the Dr. Martin Luther King,Jr. monument was made of WHITE stone. Future generations will know King, just as Jesus is now popularly, but inaccurately, depicted, as a white man.
The Democrats who created this travesty are the real racists.
You should not conflate Democrats with liberals. The two are not the same. Liberals exist to soften the blow of fascist authoritarianism and make it more pallatable to the masses. Without liberals, the fascists would go to far and get hoist on their own petard eventually, as Marx predicted. New strongmen would take hold, and the cycle would repeat itself. Do not accuse Democrats of being liberals.
The categories “liberal” and “Democrat” are not coextensive.
However, I expect liberals to be scarce in the other wing of the capitalist duopoly.
That being said, liberals demonstrate a strong level of support for their conservative masters, not having any coherent understanding independent of conservative ideology with which to initiate solutions to economic problems that do not include pandering to their capitalist overlords.
So from your perspective which is worse: The Democratic Party because it is the home of liberals; or liberals, because they poison the Democratic Party?
This semantic distinction is moot to me, the consideration of each relative to the whole is a dung heap not worth sorting out.
I was thinking of taking an actual picture of the President and running it through some Photoshop filters to cartoonify it a little … except I believe there is likely to be a hidden racist message in photoshopping pictures of the President with color filters chosen by a white man. At least, once an editorial quasi-cartoon with a cut and paste from an actual picture of the President makes a sharp critique of the administration, there will be.
There is always the approach of Doonesbury, with the floating feather as W ~ a floating halo, for instance, would suit the treatment of the President in some quarters of some veal pen sites. However, better to not to do anything and keep on doing what you are doing.
If political cartoonists are afraid to draw the POTUS for fear of being branded racist, does that mean the terrorists have won?
The terrorists won when Bush said: “Everybody go shopping!” That jackass!
In another article It said, “that in your analysis Republicans dislike Obama because they are racist.” So, I’m guessing that only ultra progressive liberals are allowed to dislike the Presidents policy’s and everyone else is a ape drawing racist. You, my dear are the racist, assuming Republicans care as much about race as you do. I’m a conservative person, and dislike Obamas policies immensely, and hope daily he will be impeached before ruins this nation. I find it quite humorous you are fighting a battle against your own rally cry! Fun, isn’t it.
> dislike Obamas policies immensely,
Would those happen to be the same policies you loved when they were Bush’s policies? Just curious…
I read within the last day or two that the first hearings are being conducted in the House that would enable impeachment proceedings to begin. I don’t know the basis being considered. (?)
It’s really odd – been checking out your cartoons for a while now and have very much appreciated the way they (you) expose the profound shallowness of our “leaders,” men and women supposedly of gravitas who are actually deficient – but I have never thought of your drawing of BO as racist, never occurred to me that his image as illustrated was simian in any way. He just looked like a lying doofus, a lightweight kind of third tier public relations shill, willing to grin his way through as the truth evaporated around him.
Maybe, Ted, you should consider drawing BO very, very small, with his tiny head barely recognizable above his starched collar and with little hands poking out of his sleeves on pencil-line thin wrists. We know that he is an empty suit, as they saw, but, in fairness, his puffery allows him to cosplay as being barely there. A radically diminutive BO character would catch the essential flavor of his vapidness while heightening the savagery of his penchant for remote killing. It would allow you to add microscopic facial expressions and to stymie your critics’ attempts to vilify you as they pass on holding this bag of hot air responsible for the serial disasters of his administration.
Excuse the typo – it’s supposed to read “as they say.”
Double oops! Just realized that I used the word “savagery” in reference to BO’s drone-strike habit. Now, I am a racist, too. The horror … the horror.
Well now he just looks like Muhammad.
Of course if you head over there now…
The NEW truth is that it was never about how Ted drew the president. Instead it was always about how he was being a big old meanie poopie head for failing to apologize when some people decided that they were offended.
See, nothing the folks over there love more than dishing out “All is forgiven, go forth and sin no more”. Provide the apology is abject enough and the calling out of the former position full of enough horror… all is forgiven. Just post a “I used to be a Republican” over there and watch how fast it’ll climb the rec list.
But defend yourself? Yeah, that’s ALWAYS a no-no. How DARE you not immediately accept your accusers worldview as more valid than your own! Because that’s the REAL worldview and you’re obviously too stupid to figure that shit out.
Starts to feel like a goddamn 12 stepper or rededication altar call. Only difference is that you don’t get true absolution, because if you step out of line your past sins are ALL dredged up again.
I like the blacked-out boxes, Ted. But that’s probably because I’m a racist, too. 🙂
i would have preferred a robot. maybe it’s too obvious. but i’m surprised i haven’t seen anyone depict obama as the soulless, (killing) machine that he is. controlled by his corporate masters, of course. but i’ll take the smiley face. 🙂
Don’t worry, Ted. By the time President Obama finishes his second term, he will be white enough to move into George W. Bush’s gated community.
Don’t give up, Ted – you’re speaking truth to power & you know it. (You’re not actually giving up, and *I* know it 😉 Perhaps you should depict him as Batman’s nemesis, Two-Face.
Much of what Obama’s been blamed for is actually the work of congress, and I used to defend him on that basis. BUT – the gangland style execution of UBL, followed by the blatantly illegal murder of an American citizen and his sixteen-year-old son woke me up. This ain’t the man I thought I was voting for.
At least Bush had the excuse that he never actually read the Constitution.
No, I will never give in to a bunch of bullies. Which is what these Kossacks are. You do have to laugh when you get accused of racism by a bunch of white guys who support a president who loves to blow up brown people with drones.
Dude, you’re the best thing that’s happened to them yet. Heartfelt blog hug on my part.
Markos can go run his sports blog and be happy or something. Get out of the way. He’s certainly made enough money to afford it, what was it, forty thousand a month in 2003? It must have picked up tons for a few years after that. Not like he’s running a nonprofit.
He’s never been willing to tell the public what he pays his staff.
Oh, hell yeah. And Obama is a lawyer who had a great reputation like Harvey!
These guys have a lot of nerve to assume that Obama *has* any humanity left for you to demean after all he has done to people all over the globe.
Hope ?!?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu0brlGGQ2Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Not to worry, Ted – if Ms Clinton makes it all the way in ’16, both philogeny and Sino-phobia will be IN, big way…. 😉
Henri
This smiley face robs the cartoon of power. I mean, this isn’t Doonesbury. I always appreciated it when I’d read a Rall cartoon and it made me wince like something bit me. TR tends to put the unspeakable on the page, both in words and drawings. Where else can you get that?
You may be happy by developments this week. I’m regretting the smiley face.
@ allshe –
Are you insinuating that “Doonesbury” has no POWER???? Wow, that’s indefensible. 🙂