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As a member of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, and a member in good standing of the "Fourth Estate", let me weigh in on this issue with some perspective. First, although I find the artist's opinion to be infantile, banal and pig-headed reactionary bile, his right to have it printed by a willing editor must remain beyond dispute if we as Americans truly value the First Amendment. Secondly, even though his choice of imagery is, perhaps, in poor taste, I fail to see any real difference between the disaster/tragedy/outrage of the attack on the WTC and the OKC bombing or Pearl Harbor (both of which have been used as cartoonist's fodder in countless panels). Powerful images of such horrific historical events have been exploited by those in my chosen field from the earliest pre-Thomas Nast era. This particular cartoonists "crime", as I see it, was not allowing a decent time interval between the event and its use as graphic background in an opinion cartoon, not that he chose to use it at all!

It's kind of like pornography, if it has to be explained you probably won't get it, but most people know it when they see it. It requires a certain level of humanity to understand not whether to use these images, but how to use them. (please refer to toupsie and seamole's letters on the subject they say it so well.) The guy has every right to draw this cartoon and his editor to run it. The antidote to bad speech is more speech, and I think that point has come home to both these guys as the public responds.

This event was used to portray the president as deliberately evil and destructive because he wants to adress social security in a new way (as well as his budget). Most people recognise it was not a politcal commentary, but a personal one, using one of the most horrific events in our history to take a cheap political shot. They were repelled by this (like the James Byrd ad) and rightly so. It reduces the power of politcal debate, to vicious ad hominem attack, which of course the cartoonist could try on, as his "right." To hide behind the censorship banner is just an effort to justify his own stupidity and lack of moral or itellectual reference. Using this event in such a cheap way, is cruel to everyone who has suffered, indeed the entire country, as well as the president. It is the level of cruelty in the cartoon to which people responded. At the point where commentary crosses the line into insensitive cruelty, people recoil. I'm glad that they spoke out so strongly. That is how this free speech thing works.

regards

First, although I find the artist's opinion to be infantile, banal and pig-headed reactionary bile, his right to have it printed by a willing editor must remain beyond dispute if we as Americans truly value the First Amendment.

True, but irrelevant to the discussion at hand.

Nobody is suggesting that the government should drag this guy or his editor away in chains. And we have every right to express our own opinions about the sick hacks who created and published this.

The First Amendment doesn't protect them against criticism.