once again, kirchick can take a perfectly appropriate position - taking offense at this dumb cartoon of McCain...sorry,I think that the last time my nerveless fingers touched the pages of Rolling Stone was back in 1977 - and soil it with his signature petty and bizarrely indignant liberal smearing richocet logic...

Isn't the picture a takeoff on images from "The Deer Hunter"?

People still read Rolling Stone?

If the New Yorker cartoon had been interior, no one would have noticed.  If this cartoon had been on the cover, people would have complained.  

The cover of the current issue of Rolling Stone magazine has a photo of a smiling Obama. This cartoon is placed with an accompanying article. The cartoon depicts John McCain being tortured by guards - it does not depict him as "an unhinged warmonger rendered mentally unfit because of his experience in Vietnam." Perhaps that is a subliminal reaction of Kirchick made liminal in yet another utterly stupid post.

What will it take before Franklin Foer finally puts an end to the embarrassment that is Kirchick. Cottle, Orr, Zengerle and the TNR staff should be ashamed to share a blog with him.

Yeah, Cookie, and ain't it odd? Because why would someone take a perfectly valid and admirable idea (e.g., McCain unjustly smeared) and cut its nuts out, as JJ would say, by linking it to an imperfect, invalid idea (e.g., Obama not unjustly smeared)? Impetuous reasoning is too often oxymoronic.

Scott Fitzgerald's observation about intelligence requiring the ability to simultaneously entertain contradictory ideas comes to mind.

I agree that the cartoon is flat-out offensive.

But this isn't really a knock-down, open-and-shut proof of  pervasive liberal media bias. The New Yorker is more respected and widely read, and a cover illustration on the most country's most presitigious literary mag is different from something buried inside a second-rate music publication. To prove that this is liberal bias, you would have to explain why Rush and Hannity weren't brandishing the Rolling Stone cartoon *yesterday,* as evidence of a double standard, when everyone was debating the New Yorker cover. The answer is that they didn't know about it, because no one in the Washington media establishment reads the Rolling Stone.

"the above cartoon is genuinely offensive for ridiculing the wartime service and years of torture endured by McCain."

Huh? How does the cartoon ridicule his service and the torture he endured?  I don't think the cartoon is intended to mock McCain or hist service (if it is, maybe I just don't get it).

This represents the last throes of the Treacherous New Yorker Cartoon Conversation , I swear. But the

Jamie:

Name me one high profile supporter of Obama that has claimed that McCain is an "an unhinged warmonger rendered mentally unfit because of his experience in Vietnam".  You can't because they have not.  Your Politico article smeared his supporters by inferring such a claim where none existed.  Each and every example cited by you (John Rockefeller, Tom Harkin, Wesley Clark, Rand Beers) were people claiming that McCain's experiences in Vietnam did not automatically qualify him to be President.  None of them ever claimed McCain was "unhinged" or "mentally unfit" in any way.  Only you made that claim.

And now you cite yourself approvingly to prove the truth of that claim.  Amazing.

And truly pathetic.

1. McCain *is* an unhinged warmonger.  Whether he was rendered mentally unfit, in part, because of his experience in Vietnam, or he is just mentally unfit is for his doctors to determine.

2. Actually, most analyses of McCain point to his state of mind *before* his Vietnam crash, as document in the 600 or so pages of his record that have not been published.  He crashed four other planes and was not allowed on any of the elite fighter or bombers of the time.

3. I find this cartoon quite funny, in fact; I think conservatives and Kirchick should find a sense a humour.

4. Kirchick is too limited in his reading and world view to have seen "The Deer Hunter", so I suspect he does not get the joke.

5. The person who argued that being shot down and tortured is not a qualification for President happens to have been a decorated four-star General with a distinguished record not only in Vietnam but also in actually conducting a war.

6. To show show Obama needling a caged McCain is not exactly "lampooning" McCain's torture experience.  To show a potentially future President of the United States burning the flag in the White House under the portrait of a mass-murder is not exactly light-hearted.  A propos which, I thin Lieberman as a bloodsucking Shylock eating Palestinian babies while roasting Iranians on a mushroom cloud, as he is shitting on a Democractic ass, would be really funny, as a lampoon of the dark imaginings of left wing rubes.  Don't you think?  I didn't think so.

If as I suggested above, the cartoon is a takeoff on images from "The Deer Hunter" (the bamboo cage, the red headband rag), then doesn't it indeed play off of the old stereotypes of the unhinged Viet vet?  That doesn't necessarily make it offensive; politics ain't, and shouldn't be, beanbag.  

I'd like to know what you think of McCain's depiction in the new JibJab short, Jamie.

The cartoon is offensive, but only for its portrayal of the Vietnamese.  I don't think there's any parody or satire of McCain there -- it shows him, you know, getting tortured.  He happens to be drawn with a large head.

Just to clarify, it should go without saying that any *actual* shots at McCain's service (I'm thinking along the lines of those purple heart band-aids at the Republican Convention in 2004) are unacceptable.  I just didn't really see that in the cartoon.

To clarify even further, it is not an attack on someone's service to question its relevance to something else, or to question how a veteran's experiences affect his outlook.  It was perfectly legitimate in 2004 (or 1996, or 1972) to say that military service, while worthy of respect, does not necessarily qualify one to be President.  And enduring torture for years has a huge impact on people; whether it's McCain or Ingrid Betancourt, the person that comes out of such an ordeal is different than the person who went in.  I honestly don't know how it affected McCain, but I don't see how it would be an insult to McCain's service to suggest that years of torture impacted him negatively.

Jamie, read Brent's post above. Again.

And, please identify the "high-profile Obama surrogates" who said that McCain was an "unhinged warmonger rendered mentally unfit because of his experience in Vietnam." We'll be waiting.

And then, please correct your blog entry, or, alternatively, stop making things up. When you make ridiclous statements like the one I quoted, it puts you entire blog post on an intellectual plane somewhere between Cathy cartoons and LOLCats.

I agree with everybody.

Let me contribute an example: a cartoon of  Jamie Kirchick between tortured by his adversaries, that is, sane people, only elicits sympathy for the poor victim. A cartoon that is more relevant to the actual facts, or an exaggeration of existing perceptions, is more likely to offend. For example, a cartoon of Martin Peretz sodomizing Jamie Kirchick would only be contemptible.

Jamie, if you can't see the difference it's because you are a troll.

I don't see any satire whatsoever in the above picture either, both pictures are pathetic. But Kirchick, of course, in his idiotic contrarian way, only sees the offensiveness in this one, without even mentioning the horrendously drawn Vietnamese.

And as mentioned above, no mention of both positioning (cover vs. inside) and status the two magazines hold in society.

And the most humorless writer TNR has is Kirchick, I have never seen a single post of his that had any amusing value, just selfrighteous snark and whining. Please TNR post a warning above his posts. put the writers name at top.

The sad fact is that both cartoons are stupid and not very funny to me.  As was posted monday, I obviously felt the New Yorker "COVER" not inside cartoon!!! was more personally offensive to Obama.  

What I find interesting though about Kirchick's post is that for the Obama cover, I was told "hey, it's satire, don't you get it!".  So shouldn't those same people be telling me the same thing about the Rolling Stone INSIDE CARTOON.  Of course not, to those people I guess this cartoon is just mean and disrespectful, the Obama cover: funny.

Huh.

BTW, someone upthread was talking about the Vietnam torturers in the pics, correct me if I'm wrong but they are supposed to be "Vietnamesianized(?)" versions of Obama, GWBush, and Hilary Clinton, right?

lamh31 -

I didn't realise they were supposed to be "Vietnamesianized" versions of anyone until someone upthread alluded to it. Even then I didn't know who the middle one was unless it was George Bush and then the cartoon didn't make any sense at all. This is a bad cartoon.

Lamh:  exactly right.  Thanks--I picked out GWBush, but couldn't recognize the other two as Obama and Clinton until you pointed it out.  Guess that means they aren't very good caricatures.

So, with that information, what's the message of the cartoon?  Maybe that McCain is beset from all sides--he's being attacked by his would-be opponents, Obama and Clinton, while W, whom he wishes would just go away, won't leave him alone?  Seems as likely as anything else to me.  I'm certainly not getting that he is supposed to be "unhinged" or unstable from it.

How bad is this cartoon? From the two most recent comments:

-- Even then I didn't know who the middle one was unless it was George Bush

-- I picked out GWBush, but couldn't recognize the other two as Obama and Clinton

Sad.

JK.

Name one "high profile" surrogate of the Obama campaign that has suggested anything like "McCain is mentally unhinged."  What typical bullshit. The only surrogates that have made that accusation are the ones currently sitting in the White House and playing grab ass on Fox News.

If this magazine continues to tolerate this kid, they should just pull the plug and say that TNR is simply a vanity project for Martin Peretz and not a serious publication.

Jamie's right about this cartoon.  It really is appalling.

Neil

Funny - I didn't get the Obama, GWB, Clinton references either - and even now have to really look at the picture to get it....even funnier to me is that I thought person in the cage was actually Matt Taibbi - boy I really didn't get it......

Somehow I don't expect McCain to whine about this little spitball the way his opponent whined and cried about the New Yorker slap. After all, McCain's been through much worse, hasn't he,,,,

At what point did Obama whine and cry about the New Yorker cover? Seemed to me he basically ignored it. His campaign predictably said it was idiotic, which it was, then dropped the matter.

No, McCain whines and cries whenever anyone mentions his 100 years in Iraq remark. Apparently, repeating his remarks word for word represents dishonesty and a smear.

tep,

Try to follow along with the daily news rather than Kirchiking-up the things you wished happened.

Obama didn't whine or cry, and neither did his campaign. They made one statement, and then on Larry King, the Senator himself said that he's seen worse and that it was their decision. Some whining. If you want to see whining, talk to a PUMA or go to www.hillaryis44.com. Free with every whine: Some self-delusion and outright lies. Suffice to say, you should comment over there, you'll be in good company.

That said, I looked at this cartoon three times before I posted my earlier comment and didn't even notice that the three people tormenting McCain were Hillary, Barack and W. Not only is this cartoon in poor taste (and in a poor publication), but it's also poorly done.

And, Kirchik: Did you come up with the name of a single Obama surrogate yet? I fully expect your next post to be a rattling off of names of Obama surrogates who said that McCain was, "unhinged warmonger rendered mentally unfit because of his experience in Vietnam." Again, same rule as Tammy: Citing Politico only makes your task of looking respectable more difficult. Citing yourself is just poor form. Of course, after your bloggerhead debate, what do I expect?

Typical Kirchick. The boy can't even read a cartoon. All it illustrates is the concept that McCain is beset on all sides by adversaries, including his own party's president. I'm sorry, but this is a very obvious cartoon (as are the Obama, Clinton, and Dubya faces -- it mystifies me how anyone who recognized the figure in the middle as McCain could fail to recognize the others). This cartoon doesn't depict anything remotely like what Jamie reads into it. (Then again, nothing, except perhaps the work of his favorite bigoted Jewish conservative gay porn star actually says anything remotely like what Jamie reads into it.)

But while we're on the subject of the "New Yorker" cartoon, does Jamie not regard burning the American flag as a highly offensive act? If burning the flag is a highly offensive action, then falsely accusing someone of burning a flag or of being the sort of person who would burn the flag must also be highly offensive. Therefore, anyone who finds the burning of the American flag offensive must find the "New Yorker" cover offensive, in that it falsely accuses Obama of being a flag-burner. The fact that Jamie DOESN'T find the "New Yorker" cover offensive is therefore proof that he does not disapprove of flag-burning. And you know what I don't have patience for? Whiny little know-it-all pipsqueaks who approve of flag-burning. I don't mind overgrown children who think they're smarter than all the real grownups they encounter immediate after college; been there, done that. I don't mind kids with the intellectual heft of a math-team sub-captain who don't even appear to be old enough to shave setting themselves up as "pundits" in the presence of adults who actually know what they're talking about. A person can forgive the foolish pretensions of the young.

No, what I mind is when insufferably entitled post-Gen-X poseurs don't respect the flag. Goddammit, boy, burning the flag is not a joking matter.

James, although I agree that Lefties are humorless hypocrites, and demonstrate same all the time, I'm afraid this cartoon is not really an example of same.

It shows his opponents driving him nuts in a bamboo cage, and he is coming unhinged.  You could, if you were sensitive, question the taste of the thing, but it pretty much falls within the bounds of political cartoons.  Which are pretty wide bounds.

What I most liked about the Obama New Yorker brouhahaha is it exposed a pretty wide range of people on both sides who were either not to bright or totally disingenuous.  I even found myself on the same side with James Carville.

ChanRobt -

I think the cartoon is atrocious.  

McCain served his country in time of war, was shot down, captured and tortured as the result of that service, and to this day his body is walking testimony to the painful hardship he endured.  That is worthy of our respect - and such respect is simply inconsistent with the mockery depicted in that cartoon.

In a free country, Rolling Stone can print whatever it likes, and I can deplore some or all of their choices.  I certainly deplore this one.

In direct contradiction of Jamie's argument, I find this cartoon offensive and was quite unaffected by the New Yorker cartoon.  Even when he is right, Mr Kirchick turns out to be wrong.

Amazing, no?

Neil

Via KAL, who draws cartoons for the Economist , this gem : Now, I think it's fair to say that eagle

TNR started off the week by trouncing The Atlantic at softball and settling in for a Sunday read of Ryan