DEVELOPING: SECRET SERVICE CONCERN AFTER LOS ANGELES TIMES COMIC DEPICTS 'BUSH ASSASSINATION'

drudge

[ConservativeMan55]

DEVELOPING: SECRET SERVICE CONCERN AFTER LOS ANGELES TIMES COMIC DEPICTS 'BUSH ASSASSINATION'

[StupidQuestions]

There is no threat of assassination in that a cartoon! It is an editorial and is protected. The cartoonist will probably tell the secret service to go pound salt. No court in its right mind will see any threat in that cartoon. It just isn't there.

[fightu4it]

You might want to be a member of FR for more than 9 days before you use a tag line like that. ;^)

[autoresponder]

Clothing, posture, buildings.....

Note the addition of an Islamic Mosque on left of the large office building.

Obviously a Muslim nation.

The "POLITIKS" lettering on the terrorist means nothing.

I also seem to detect the subtle dark outlines of a suicide bomb belt around the terrorist's jacket.

Check it out.

This cartoonist is a radical leftist Republican hater.

Let's attempt to rewrite his resume here!

[Coleus]

You think Bush or the secret service will go after a democrat-leaning paper? Ha, the republicans FEAR the press.

[Quick1]

It's political speech, which is protected by the First Amendment. You haven't shown me anything to the contrary, other than yelling "fire" in a theater (which is perfectly legal if there IS a fire).

He isn't calling for the assassination of Bush at all. He is saying that that is what the Democrats are doing to him right now.

[huck von finn]

For pete's sake, get a grip!

[hellinahandcart]

Depicting Bush as the VC combatant implies that he is equally in the wrong, and about to be executed by the harsh justice of American politics. Am I wrong?

I think you're wrong about Bush being cast as the one in the wrong in any way, and that the cartoonist thinks there's any "justice", harsh or otherwise, in the politically motivated attempted character "assassination" that I believe is portrayed in the cartoon.

The original photograph captured an actual event. Then it was turned into from an actual event into a propaganda event. For political purposes, the two men in the photo were reduced to archetypes that had nothing to do with reality. Once that happened, no amount of proof would make the shooter appear less guilty or the shootee appear less innocent. They were determined to see this image and disseminate it in a certain way, and in no other. Just as they are now determined to portray Bush as having deceived us all into war. They will lie outright and not think of it as lying, since they have deliberately chosen an alternate reality.

The cartoonist has inverted the situation in that old photo. It's as if he's saying to the left "Hey, remember THIS? It's what you're doing now. And I see you."

It is a Pro-Bush cartoon, but I have to agree it's not clear enough. Poor guy'd better be good at writing, 'cause he's going to have to explain this one tomorrow, and a lot of people STILL won't be satisfied.

[dr_who_2]

Another dumbass editorial cartoonist bites the dust. Remember the takeoff of the fireman holding the dead child after the OKC bombing?

[huck von finn]

and wants all us Republicans dead.

Did you read that on Drudge too?

[BagCamAddict]

I agree with your take on it. The superficial take is that "politics are killing an unarmed W who is unable to defend himself regarding Iraq." But like you said, the truth behind the original photo from Viet Nam was that the execution of the out-of-uniform VC combatant was justified and the shooter was acting in accordance with the rules of war at the time. The shooter (the police chief) was an executioner, not an assassin.

So I can see why there are many interpretations of this political cartoon, depending on one's understanding (or lack thereof) of the original photo. I don't know what Ramirez intended, but given that the original photo was a "legal" execution, I tend to wonder if perhaps Ramirez did NOT know the full story behind the Life Mag cover photo. Most people don't know the whole story (which was included in post #184).

It will be interesting to see whether any explanations or apologies come forth during the week.

[dogbyte12]

Sigh, I worry about our free republic at times like these. Maybe if he drew it in crayon with captions in 3rd grade english it would have worked better.

[Quick1]

This cartoonist is a radical leftist Republican hater. Actually, he is quite the opposite. Check his cartoons out, and you will see. Post #465 is a good example.

[rwfromkansas]

Who is being shot in this picture?

Since this cartoonist is a conservative, no doubt he did not mean harm toward Bush.

[Calpernia]

Your statement is correct; however, in the 'blackice' times...with something that IS trying to be surprised...that is in fear of developing...this is an alter message. A cry for help from the blackice that is developing.

In other times...your fear is correct. Now? Probably not.

Something is about to be released. My guess? It has to do with all those papers we have. Names, dates, invovlement...There is something there that the mishmosh crown wants hidden.

[rwfromkansas]

Guys, before you write the Times, this cartoonist supports the war on Iraq and is a conservative. Clearly the cartoon is being misinterpreted.

[King Prout]

long-time lurker.

[Gabrielle Reilly]

Sorry about the long post but you can see with some of these philosophies how these people arrive at the stupid decisions they do...

Message About LA Times Cartoon Outdated
ADL has received complaints about an editorial cartoon, "Worshipping Their God" by Michael Ramirez of the Los Angeles Times, which portrayed two men worshipping at a wall labeled "hate." The complaints are based on an e-mail message that has recently circulated on the Internet. This e-mail message contains information long outdated.

This Ramirez cartoon appeared in the Times and in other newspapers in October of 2000. The cartoon depicted a Jew and an Arab (not two Jews) praying before a wall labeled "Hate." The wall was not intended to be the Western Wall, though many in the Jewish community assumed it was.

Although the subject of controversy at the time, the matter has long since been put to rest.

Shortly after the cartoon appeared, ADL produced a survey of editorial cartoons, which explained the incident as follows:

The Ramirez cartoon, "Worshipping Their God," which appeared in the Los Angeles Times on Oct. 6, 2000 after surfacing on the Times Internet site three days earlier, was syndicated to newspapers across the country and also widely disseminated across the Internet. After a barrage of complaints, including from major Arab and Jewish organizations, that the cartoon was unfair and insensitive, the cartoonist himself issued a public response: "There seems to be a misperception by some that my cartoon depicts the Western Wall and that I blamed the Israelis solely for the hatred and violence in the Middle East. Actually, the metaphor depicts BOTH Israelis AND Palestinians worshipping "hate."

The Los Angeles Times published a letter from ADL criticizing the cartoon the following day. This was followed on October 15 by a lengthy commentary by the newspaper’s ombudsman, Times Associate Editor Narda Zacchino, who described the public outcry as "unprecedented." She stated: "Obviously, the cartoon failed to communicate his (Ramirez’s) message. In addition, virtually no one saw the image as anything but the Western Wall, the use of which in the cartoon was careless and insensitive."

http://www.adl.org/rumors/latimes_cartoon.asp




This is the editor Narda Zacchino's husbands stance on issues:

But nothing represents Scheer's intellectual laziness better than his reckless and continuing defense of Wen Ho Lee.

The immediate context of the Lee case had been set by a report released in May 1999 by the so-called Cox Committee on the theft of nuclear secrets. The report, approved by a bipartisan committee led by Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., concluded: "The espionage inquiry found Beijing has stolen U.S. design data for nearly all elements needed for a major nuclear attack on the U.S., such as advanced warheads, missiles and guidance systems."

On May 11, Scheer answered the findings of the bipartisan committee on the theft of nuclear secrets with the following ludicrous dismissals: "Let's as those Apple Computer ads implore, think different. There are no nuclear weapons secrets or, indeed, nuclear 'weapons' for China to have stolen," he wrote.

Scheer did not actually try to substantiate the absurd claim that the United States has no nuclear weapons secrets. (He just left it floating in the ether.) But he did take a stab at the idea that there are no nuclear weapons: "Nuclear bombs are not actually weapons because, in today's world, they cannot be employed to win battles but can serve only as instruments of mass terror." The statement -- and the entire column -- showed an ignorance of deterrence theory astounding for a man whose personal Web site boasts that "from 1976 to 1993, he served as a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, where he wrote articles on such diverse topics as the Soviet Union, arms control, national politics and the military."

Having established, albeit only in words, that there were no nuclear weapons secrets to steal, Scheer found it relatively easy to reach the conclusion that Lee was innocent of the suspicions the FBI had focused on him, notwithstanding the fact that he had removed thousands of pages of classified files from the Los Alamos nuclear weapons lab (in and of itself a violation of the Espionage Act). Drawing on years of training in the left, Scheer went on the offensive, identifying Lee as the hapless target of a racial witch hunt. Two months later, on Aug. 3, Scheer wrote his first Wen Ho Lee column. It began with Scheer's usual subtlety:


The 'Chinaman' did it. The diabolical Asian has long been a staple of American racism, and it's not surprising that the folks attempting to whip up a new red espionage scare would focus on Wen Ho Lee.

In making these bizarre accusations, Scheer was obviously aware that any such witch hunt against Lee would have to have been orchestrated by Lee's prosecutors -- Attorney General Janet Reno, FBI Director Louis Freeh and the local U.S. attorney on the case, who happened to be a former college roommate and close political friend of Bill Clinton's. To make the persecution of Lee seamless, there would also have to be collusion on the part of the acting deputy attorney general for civil rights, Bill Lann Lee -- himself an American of Chinese lineage and a hypersensitive opponent of racial profiling.

All this did not cause Scheer any second thoughts. Instead, he just plucked two more supposed culprits out of his magician's hat: the Republican head of the bipartisan nuclear secrets committee (to please radical fans) and the chief media rival to his own paper (to please editors at the Times). Wrote Scheer:


Facts evidently don't matter to those in Congress, led by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-Newport Beach), and in the media, where the august New York Times has acted as head cheerleader for those sounding the alarm of a Chinese nuclear threat.

The following day, Cox responded. In a letter to the editor, he pointed out that Lee's name had not appeared in his committee report, and that "neither I nor any member of the Select Committee had even heard of Wen Ho Lee when we completed our report in January." Cox further pointed out that when Energy Secretary Bill Richardson fired Lee, calling him a man who had "massively violated our security system," Cox had issued a widely publicized statement criticizing the media's spotlight on Lee and saying that it was wrong, without proof, "to juxtapose him with some of the most serious crimes that have ever been committed against our military secrets."

The fact that the man whom Scheer falsely accused of persecuting Lee had actually defended the scientist did not prevent Scheer from repeating the slander in a column the next month. "It's time to pronounce the Chinese nuclear weapons spy story a hoax," he wrote. Scheer said the rationale for the investigation was "led by an outraged Cox, who represents the more right-wing fringes of Southern California, eager to find a new evil empire as justification of a military buildup, once the staple of that region's economy."

With that column Scheer managed to start a witch hunt of his own, tarring Cox, a respected congressional leader, as a member of the farthest-right fringe. Scheer's subsequent column provoked a joint rebuttal from Cox and the ranking Democrat on the committee, Norm Dix, a liberal from Washington: Scheer's "column asserted four main 'facts,'" their letter asserted, and "each of them is false."

Five days before Scheer's column appeared, the National Intelligence Estimate, representing the consensus of the entire U.S. intelligence community, released a report predicting that China was ready to test a new, longer-range intercontinental missile that could travel farther than anything it had previously developed. The technology had been developed from secrets that had been passed to the Chinese. This missile technology had been shared with Kim Il Sung's loony police state in North Korea. The letter also stated that the missile would be fitted with "smaller nuclear warheads -- in part influenced by U.S. technology gained through espionage." It was a warhead, the W-88, small enough to fit a missile, that Lee was suspected of stealing information about. (Editor's note: It was later learned that Lee never worked on or had access to data relating to that warhead.)

In the midst of Scheer's false claims and accusations (his articles continued into the following year), he got a break. On Sept. 13, 2000, the government announced that it was dropping 58 of its 59 charges against Lee. President Clinton even volunteered an apology, as though some kind of injustice had been done. However, this didn't prevent Clinton from flying to New Mexico the very next week to raise campaign money for Lee's prosecutor. The New York Times also apologized. Reno and Freeh did not. Freeh told a congressional committee: "The Department of Justice and the FBI stand by each and every one of the 59 counts in the indictment of Dr. Lee. Each of those counts could be proved in December 1999 [when Lee was formally indicted], and each of them could be proven today."

At the time Freeh defended the decision, I recalled events of the past that I believe motivated Scheer's continual defense of Lee and the Chinese communists -- it was a bedrock of conviction that hadn't changed in 40 years.

I submitted a column to Salon on Wen Ho Lee with the following reference to Scheer's politics: "While we were divulging the secrets of America's electronic intelligence agency in the pages of Ramparts back in the '60s, Scheer was joining the Red Sun Rising Commune [in Berkeley] and becoming an acolyte of North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung." A Salon editor contacted Scheer to ask him about the veracity of the claims about his dalliance with Kim Il Sung that I had intended to include in the column. He stated flatly that they were untrue. I let the denial pass at the time, and the mention was not included in my column.

When I called Collier, my old Ramparts co-editor, he reminded me that Scheer had taken a delegation from the Red Family Commune to visit Ramparts editor and Black Panther minister of information Eldridge Cleaver, who was a fugitive in North Korea, having ambushed two San Francisco police officers and fled the country in 1968. The Red Family was a "guerrilla foco" that Scheer and Tom Hayden had formed. A member of the Scheer delegation named Jan Austin was a copy editor at Ramparts, and she came back with glowing tales about North Korean communism, Kim Il Sung's "Palace of the Children" and the gourmet spreads the government had laid out for them. Subsequently, a carton of the "Collected News Conferences of Kim Il Sung" arrived, by mail, in the Ramparts office, and Collier and I amused ourselves by opening one volume that began with a question to Kim, and was followed with a 300-page answer.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/horowitz022101.asp

[Charles H. (The_r0nin)]

While I wouldn't have used this cartoon to get my point across, it's very powerful and not intended to be anti-Bush IMO.

Good God!!!

You are absolutely right, of course. Since when have the majority of posters here on FR become so ignorant of history, knee-jerk and emotional in their reactions (between this and the Kobe threads there isn't a thimble-full of reasoned thought), quick to jump to uniformed conclusions, and unwilling and unable to actually DISCUSS and DEFEND their conclusions (look at how many people on this thread had resorted to shouting their reaction and then refused to even acknowledge that this is a subject that can be debated)? What has happened to FR?

ATTENTION ADMIN MODERATORS: Please route all present traffic off of the "Breaking News" sidebar! I feel a You-guys-have-all-become-idiots-and-kooks-and-I'm-leaving opus coming on....

Jeeeeeez!

[Destro]

here! here!!! Lots of knee jerks is right!

[fightu4it]

Glad to see so many new posters on this thread, I think.