The John Cole editorial cartoon “Race Baiting” printed on the editorial page of the Jan. 27 issue was disgusting and appalling, in addition to being very deceptive and fraudulent.
The cartoonist would have people believe that racism is the reason for actions depicted, yet an examination of the facts would reveal something else.
The Willie Horton incident, first brought up by Al Gore against Michael Dukakis in the 1988 primaries did feature a focus on the man Willie Horton, a convicted murder in Massachusetts who was sentenced to life in prison without parole that happened to be African American. The ads run by the G.H.W. Bush campaign during the general election focused on Dukakis’s extremely liberal and dangerous policy of allowing all felons to have “unsupervised furloughs” while still serving time for serious crimes – including murderers sentenced to life without parole. On such felon was Willie Horton, who left Massachusetts while on a furlough, and he went to Maryland where he terrorized a couple, including knifing the man and repeatedly raping the woman.
The Bush campaign ad featured a revolving turnstile with a number of felons going through it while describing Dukakis’s policy of these unsupervised releases. Dukakis was unapologetic and defended the policy, while most people with any common sense realized this liberal policy was dangerous, most thought the policy made Dukakis unfit to be President. Bush’s ads were accurate, and anything but racist.
As for 2012, the cartoonist would have any disagreements with President Obama be seen as racist, rather than deserving serious discussions as to the differences between the extreme socialist policies of the incumbent, and the need to change direction. Heck, even Obama disagrees with Obama. Obama, a Senator in 2006, decried the raising of the debt ceiling, calling it an absence of leadership, yet now he is for it – repeatedly, and he is asking for more than Bush ever asked for. In 2008, he accused Bush of being “un-American” for the accumulation of $4 trillion in debt during Bush’s eight years, but now Obama has gone past the $4 trillion in only three years; does that make Obama “un-American” by his own reasoning? Is it wrong and racist to disagree with Obama in increasing our spending while burdening our kids and grandkids with our big debt? Can we disagree with Obama’s crony capitalism, loaning billions of dollars to failing alternate energy companies that then go bankrupt, without being called racist? Many other of his policies deserve careful analysis without resorting to cheaply throwing the “racist card.”
Such cartoons do not help educate the public. Yes, there are plenty of democrats (the party of the Klan, segregation, etc.) that would be quick to believe such lies. I don’t believe in censorship, but here is a case where fact checkers should have sent the cartoon back asking for it to be re-done, or have it posted in the fiction/fantasy section. Actually, the cartoonist, Cole, is trying to censor others by calling any legitimate concerns racist – and it is probably the true “race baiting.”
Michael Vineyard
Bremerton
