Hate: Popular In Cartoons, Too

We have expressed our disappointment, in several respects, with this year’s Pulitzer awards. Reader Roy Cullinan points out that this year’s editorial cartoon winner is also a disgrace. Cartoonist Nick Anderson of the Louisville, Kentucky Courier-Journal was awarded the top prize in print journalism “for his unusual graphic style that produced extraordinarily thoughtful and powerful messages,” according to the Pulitzer Web site.
You can see Anderson’s prize-winning cartoons here. Virtually every one is a vicious, hateful attack on President Bush, the United States, or Christianity. There may be more virulent haters in America than Nick Anderson, but based on this collection, there can’t be many. Here are a few examples:

Subtle, huh? More than 200 war heroes and POWs, including every officer who ever served in John Kerry’s chain of command and the seaman who served for the longest time on his boat, are all smeared as “thugs.” You know, thugs: that’s what you call people who write books you don’t agree with. And what was the “truth” that the Vets destroyed? That’s the nice thing about being a political cartoonist–you never have to explain what the heck you’re talking about. Here is another:

Gollum: certainly a fair symbol for the Republican Party. And the “politics of fear;” that’s when you try to defend America against being attacked. Again.

Political cartoonists aren’t required to actually read the news. They just make stuff up. And the great thing is, they get to be self-righteous about it. This next one is a multi-purpose attack on the Bush administration:

Sure, that’s right: President Bush and Vice-President Cheney have steamrollered the environment, fiscal responsibility, the Geneva Convention, the Constitution–and civility! Those Democrats are so civil, but somehow they keep getting run over. And finally, this one, which nicely encapsulates a certain type of far-left paranoia. Check out the spurs on W’s boots:

Yup, that’s right. The central symbol of the Christian faith, with its two billion adherents, is just a tool to ride herd on those poor Democrats. That’s what happens to them, I guess, when they aren’t being run over by construction equipment or set aflame by Vietnam veterans.
Am I missing something, or is this a pathetic body of work, as whiny, self-pitying and incompetent as it is hateful? It’s of a piece, though, with the journalism that the Pulitzer committee found worthy of reward this year. Loyalty to the Democratic party and antipathy toward America are the only qualities that count.