While the work of a Political cartoonist is one where you are supposed to be biting, today’s picture of Bill Clinton strangling Obama is nothing short of disgusting.
http://www.boston.com/bostongl…
To portray that image speaks of the Clintons as racists rather than players in hard ball politics. To be honest the more I think about the Obama Fairy Tale the more astute a comment I think it is. Mind you Obama is an intriguing figure but his 2nd place finish in NH was the first time he lost a political race and the slightly bewildered look in his demeanor in the interviews the next day reminded me we are electing the leader of the free world, not the new king of Camelot. This cartoon is more evidence of the crap Hillary will deal with that other candidates will not. Ellen Goodman said it well today on the same editorial page.
http://www.boston.com/bostongl…
At this point Hillary’s got my vote
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p>I don’t think that Wasserman’s cartoon portrays Bill as a racist- maybe as a guy with an anger management problem, but not a racist. If the cartoon showed Bill throwing a rope over a tree limb, or tying Obama to the back of a pick up truck, then you’d have a gripe.
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p>But a white guy beating up a black guy- or vice versa- isn’t inherently racist.
….. the cartoon speaks for itself and thanks for posting it. ( like the Simpsons are some kinda of standard for ethical behavior??????????)
You see a portryal of racism, I see Simpson-esque slapstick.
Can you break it down. How is it racist?
I thought that cartoon perfectly captured what happened on Monday and Tuesday in New Hampshire. Hillary Clinton finally became a real person and campaigned for why she should be nominated, and in the mean time Bill Clinton just went off the handle and thoroughly attacked Barack Obama. The Clintons won NH by Hillary going full-scale positive and Bill going full-scale negative, and it worked.
…is Wasserman’s cartoon supposed to be a satire of something that one of the Clinton’s had said? If so, it is totally appropriate satire, which is what most good political cartoons are.
….was frustration at an electorate/media/pundits that are willing to give Obama a free pass while Hillary is ground through every imaginable meat grinder that exists. I heard no anger at Obama himself from Bill Clintons out burst (the fairy tale) that would justify this image. In fact the purpose of this cartoon is to pose a question about the sincerity of Hillary’s moment of reality as some political contrivance (which IMHO it was not) and not the target of Bills outburst noted above. Have we just gone through 7 years of Bush with a cowardly medias failure to question the downward spiral of the Bush doctrine that now is allowing Obama a free pass (however noble and grand his prose) when Hillary pays double the fare. Have we as a society evolved to the point where a white man strangling a black man is now an acceptable satire subject?
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p>To think that such images carry no implicit impact is naivety and a sadder testament to the insular nature of those who live in the affluent parts of our society and think we live in a color blind world where an image like that carries no weight.
The former President has been making snide remarks about Obama, so Wasserman portrays him throttling the Senator, while Mrs. Clinton plays the pity card.
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p>Are you saying that if Obama was white, this cartoon would be OK, but because he’s half black, the cartoon implies racism on the part of the Clintons?
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p>That’s stretching credulity a bit.
What’s stretching credulity is not seeing that
…is someone suggesting that, in the arena of political commentary, black people and white people should not be treated equally.
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p>What does one call that?
If it is, the explanation has to be more than “because Bill is White and Barack is Black”. People have chastised me for seeing bias or racism where others have not, so I am sensitive to the frustration of being dismissed when a very real transgression has occurred. I’d also say I have an adept eye for bias and bigotry in words and in media. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
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p>If you could fit this cartoon into a pattern of other Wasserman, Globe, or political cartoons in general that show similar violence against Obama or Black public figures and pair that pattern with your King quote down thread, you might have something. There must be an intolerance of bigotry, both when it is overt and it is hidden in indirect language, but we can’t infantilize Black politicians to where they are not allowed to be legitimate targets for satire simply because of their race.
… the target is Bill Clinton not Obama and it is not overt but the same subliminal reference used by the Healy campaign against the Deval campaign.
The unintended consequence of seeking racist motives where there clearly are none is that eventually, the charge is rendered meaningless.
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p>Today’s reading assignment.
But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking, “Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?”;