Did Dean call anti-gay bigots "bigots?"

In the list of truly surprising surprises, this ranks somewhere below "torturing Iraqi men, women and children turned the Iraqi people against us," and somewhere above "fast food makes you fat." The Washington Times, which is euphemistically called a "newspaper" by members of the cult that owns it, and by the more delusional members of the G.O.P., paraphrased a Democrat incorrectly (emphasis mine):

Dean's outburst
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean claims to be reaching out to red-state voters, but yesterday, he suggested that opponents of homosexual "marriage" are bigots.

Mr. Dean was responding to news that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, plans to bring to a vote a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban homosexual "marriage."
"At a time when the Republican Party is in trouble with their conservative base, Bill Frist is taking a page straight out of the Karl Rove playbook to distract from the Republican Party's failed leadership and misplaced priorities by scapegoating LGBT families for political gain, using marriage as a wedge issue," said Mr. Dean, using the abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.
"It is not only morally wrong, it is shameful and reprehensible," Mr. Dean said.

I don't know about you, but I don't see the word "bigot," or even "prejudiced," in Dean's statement. I see Dean making the suggestion that Bill Frist is trying to manipulate voters by exploiting their fears, not that those voters themselves are "bigots."

I mean, they are (Gay is the new Black, after all), but Dean didn't say that here.

In order for Dean to suggest that these voters are "bigots," he'd have to suggest that Frist's ploy is going to work -- that their fear of gays overrides their ability to reason. Dean, perhaps delusionally, has been saying the opposite in recent months, and more to the point, said nothing of the sort here.

Methinks they protest too much.

I wonder if I'm the only one who found it interesting how the Fox News of newspapers felt the need to put marriage in quotes when it involves Gay people.

Darrin at Chicago Book Signing This Thursday

Laura and I will be in Chi-Town this Thursday; I'll be defacing books with autographs and sketches, along with nine other cartoonists who'll probably ask me to fetch their coffee. Here's the relevant info, cribbed from Lynn Johnston's site:

Date: Thursday, May 25th
Time: Book Signing 5-7pm
Place: Borders Book Store
Northwest corner of State and Randolph.
Located in the heart of the Chicago Loop.
150 North State St.
Chicago, IL 60601

Participants:
Lynn Johnston- For Better or For Worse
Dan Piraro- Bizarro
Bill Amend- Foxtrot
Rick Kirkman- Baby Blues
Darrin Bell- Candorville and Rudy Park
Jef Mallett- Frazz
Paul Gilligan- Pooch Cafe
Greg Evans-Luann
Mort Walker- Beetle Bailey (Mort's autobiography)
Mark Pett- Lucky Cow

President's CIA-pick Hayden had no idea Americans had a right to privacy.

Shouldn't the person picked to head the CIA be familiar with the Constitution -- the Bill of Rights, in particular? Apparently, the current nominee has some difficulty in that area.



Oh, well, privacy was overrated anyway. On the bright side, now when we tell our kids "it'll go on your permanent record," we'll no longer be liars.

Cartoon on irrational fear of "illegals" sparks irrational backlash

It's always interesting when readers write in to tell me how wrong a recent Candorville strip was, and they end up inadvertently proving my point. This e-mail is pretty much representative of all the negative mail I've received about last Sunday's cartoon:

I thought the irony of last weekend's cartoon was brilliant... time and time again in days past with each group saying how 'horrible' it is and how it's 'never been like this before'.

Times DO change, however. Too bad your cartoon didn't show Pablo and Juanita as they get sick or injured and go to the emergency room for treatment... up until the time when asked for their insurance card and they say "lo siento, no tenemos"... and at the same time, Mr and Mrs Smith wonder why their insurance rates just got jacked up again (especially when the insurance companies have to keep up with the doctor's, who also feel pinched). Or the hospitals in "heavy latino areas" wonder what they are going to do in a few years when they start going bankrupt.

And it didn't show Pablo go through a red light and take the front end of someone's car off (a REAL incident for a friend of mine) - and watch Pablo keep driving away. Of course, Pablo's license plate was left at the scene of the accident. But the police, they don't have time for such matters... good luck in civil court. Even if you do win, watch Pablo run back to the border, evading any prosecution.

Too bad the cartoon also didn't show the Katrina victims who were left with nothing and ending up getting placed in jobs out west... only to show back up a few months later, jobless again. When asked what happened, they said "the Mexicans came and underbid our jobs".

So yeah.... history repeats itself. But this time, history finally is threatening to destroy the future.

Remember that.

-R. E. B., patriot and soldier

My response:

"Thanks for writing in to prove the point I was making with last Sunday's cartoon. Times don't change. 150 years ago -- hell, 450 years ago -- people had similar complaints about immigrants - only instead of bumpers being knocked off, it was wagon wheels. Instead of complaining about them not having health insurance, they were complaining about them bringing diseases over with them. Instead of Katrina victims, it was the gold-miners complaining about Chinese taking "their" gold. Nothing you mentioned is new, or unique to illegal immigrants. The technology, languages, ethnicities and places are different, but the fundamental nature of the complaint remains the same: you are afraid that foreigners are taking your country. History has proven in each instance that that fear is unfounded. The immigrants, legal or illegal, may never learn English or get medical insurance, but their children will. That's how it's always been, and that's how it is today. Each time, xenophobes and politicians portrayed it as a crisis that would finally "destroy the future," not because that's true, but because it allows them to justify their bigotry or to amass political power. The same exact cycle is repeating itself today.

Remember that.

To address your concerns:

Too bad your cartoon didn't show Pablo and Juanita as they get sick or injured and go to the emergency room for treatment... up until the time when asked for their insurance card and they say "lo siento, no tenemos"... and at the same time, Mr and Mrs Smith wonder why their insurance rates just got jacked up again

Pablo and Juanita? You may as well have written "Peter and Jane." More than 40 million people in this country are uninsured (most of them are not illegal immigrants), and their reliance on emergency room care drives up Mr. and Mrs. Smith's insurance rates. The solution for that isn't to blame the "illegals" who make up only a fraction of the uninsured, the solution is to extend Medicare to cover everyone. We'd all pay a few dollars more per year in taxes, but we'd save thousands per year in insurance premiums. Taxpayers would save even more because people would receive free preventive care and wouldn't have to rely on expensive emergency care.

Or the hospitals in "heavy latino areas" wonder what they are going to do in a few years when they start going bankrupt.

Hospitals EVERYWHERE are going bankrupt, not just hospitals in "heavy latino areas."

And it didn't show Pablo go through a red light and take the front end of someone's car off (a REAL incident for a friend of mine) - and watch Pablo keep driving away. Of course, Pablo's license plate was left at the scene of the accident. But the police, they don't have time for such matters... good luck in civil court. Even if you do win, watch Pablo run back to the border, evading any prosecution.

You're trying to use anecdotal evidence to say illegal immigrants are responsible for hit-and-run driving in America? Are you serious? Years ago, I was hit by a White teen-ager who fled the scene. Should I blame White people for that? Should I blame teenagers? Furthermore, if it was a hit-and-run and you never caught the guy, HOW DO YOU KNOW he was an illegal immigrant?

Too bad the cartoon also didn't show the Katrina victims who were left with nothing and ending up getting placed in jobs out west... only to show back up a few months later, jobless again. When asked what happened, they said "the Mexicans came and underbid our jobs".

That's horrible, but it's absurd to blame the job-seekers for it. Why don't you blame the contractors who received billions from the government and then decided to hire illegal immigrants so they could pay them next to nothing, instead of hiring Americans and paying them in accordance with labor laws? You and I would do the same thing as these job-seekers if it came down to bidding fairly or feeding our families. They're doing what they have to do. The criminals are the employers who exploit these people just so they can increase their profit margin.

Lastly, why do you keep referring to illegal immigrants by stereotypical Mexican names? When you talk about White people, do you call them all 'Billy-Bob' or 'Opie?'"

NSA phone-monitoring aimed at journalists?

The War on Journalism continues. ABC News is reporting that the Federal Government is using using electronic surveillance to root out those who provide journalists with information about the government. For the first, oh, let's say 214 years since the Constitution was adopted, Americans understood that journalists need sources in order to report anything worth reading. Of course, considering current events, the government has a vested interest in the people not reading anything, and they're counting on the perennial apathy of the American people as they continue their assault on the First Amendment.

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

...

Our reports on the CIA's secret prisons in Romania and Poland were known to have upset CIA officials.

People questioned by the FBI about leaks of intelligence information say the CIA was also disturbed by ABC News reports that revealed the use of CIA predator missiles inside Pakistan.

Just an aside, but has anyone else noticed how emotion has been interwoven into the fabric of government and media in the past 6 years? When Senators are tasked with confirming a Presidential employee, we hear more about their families, their pets, and their favorite colors than we do about their administrative or judicial philosophies. When an appointee faces tough questioning, we hear more about how it made his victimized wife cry (possibly on cue) than about his non-answers. We have an "Office of Homeland Security," rather than an "Office of Domestic Security." The CIA isn't "determined to end leaks," it's "upset" or "disturbed." Something is very wrong when both government and Media begin using terminology that appeals more to the emotional centers of the brain rather than the logic centers. Anyway...

Under Bush Administration guidelines, it is not considered illegal for the government to keep track of numbers dialed by phone customers.

It seems none of us paid attention in second grade when they taught us about the three branches of government. Apparently it's the executive branch, not the judicial or legislative, that gets to decide what is and isn't legal.

Candorville in St. Louis?

ATTN: St. louis Post-Dispatch readers, your paper is currently trying out four comic strips to determine which one will replace "The Boondocks" during its 6-month hiatus. Candorville is currently running, after which they'll run 2 different strips before deciding which one to keep permanently. Readers who've been dying to get rid of "Boondocks" for years surely see this as their chance to replace it with something harmless and gentle -- something that never questions or challenges or dissents. You can thwart their evil plans by writing to the Post-Dispatch and telling them you want Candorville.

As a bribe -- I mean, as an "incentive" -- anyone who writes to the Post-Dispatch (make sure you actually live in the area, let's not be cheats) asking for Candorville will receive a free signed copy of the first Candorville book, defaced with a sketch. If you already have the first book, you'll get a free copy of the second book when it's published this September