Rewarding anti-semitism

From Andrew Sullivan, I learned that the infamous cartoon of Ariel Sharon eating a baby has won first prize in the British Political Cartoon Society’s annual competition. Here is the story from Haaretz, which includes the disgusting drawing. The author apparently claims to have been inspired by Goya. The real inspiration almost surely was found elsewhere.
Political cartoonists tend crank out material that is even more mindlessly liberal than that produced by those who write for the same mainstream publications. I’m not sure why this is so, but it probably has something to do with the fact that cartoonists aren’t required to make arguments. They can present any outrageous claim they choose to without even having to go through the motions of defending it. Whether their counterparts who write would make the same claims if they didn’t have to defend them or, alternatively, whether, as writers, they are collectively more intelligent than the drawers, and thus not as prone to believe ridiculous things, I do not know.
In any event, with this award we can expect the race to the bottom in political cartoons to continue.

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