More on Terror Rhetoric...

Articles for this week's 'toon:

• So, as you're likely aware, Osama sent a new tape last week (two of them, actually). What cracks me up is how the media is reacting... not in a sober tone reflecting the significance of such an event in terms of national security and world affairs, but more like, "OhmyGod, did you see what Osama was WEARING?" or "that bad dye job on his beard is so passe." I guess there are some intelligence-related inferences that can be made from minute details like that... but this is a little ridiculous, don't you think?
  
  Of course, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh turned the tapes into an opportunity to call liberals and Democrats traitors.
  
  And then there's the White House response, which brought us right down to Osama's level and made the whole thing akin to a playground spitting contest between 8 year-olds.
  
  
• The goal of this cartoon was to offer a comparison of Osama's "propaganda" with some of the recent gems from the experts in the genre: Cheney, Bush, and the rest of their team of scholars and gentlemen. First, Cheney gave a speech a few months ago (using language that would scare the crap out of John Rambo) in which he suggested that those who are in favor of withdrawal are giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Then, while on his trip to Australia last week, Commander Cretin was overheard exclaiming that "WE'RE KICKIN' ASS!" in Iraq. He then challenged the Australian Prime Minister to a game of beer pong, with the loser having to run naked through the quad and around the girls' dorm.
  
  And then there's David Addington. A former White House lawyer by the name of Jack Goldsmith has a new book out called "The Terror Presidency," which portrays Addington as a deranged lunatic who says things like, "We're one bomb away from getting rid of that obnoxious [FISA] court." So you see, according to the Vice President's Chief of Staff, another terror attack would be a good thing! (By the way, my caricature is obviously not how Addington really looks... I wanted to give him a bit of a Charles Manson look.)
  
  
• Check out Zbigniew Brzezinski on how the administration has created a "culture of fear" in America, a great commencement address by Mark Danner on the administration's use of wartime rhetoric, and Glenn Greenwald on the very real fear of many right-wingers that Islamists are coming to take over the country and impose sharia law.