Jeff Danziger: Half Racist

Got the heads up from Michelle Malkin about Jeff Danziger's latest cartooon-- a disgusting, morally indefensible piece of garbage, featuring Condoleeza Rice.

The cartoon would be racist under any other circumstance, but, of course, only Republicans can be racists in America. (We'll leave for another day the most insideous form of racism short of lynchings, that of lowered expectations.)

My email to Danziger was simple: "Disgusting. You should be ashamed of yourself."

That's all.

Danziger promptly emailed me back what I am sure is his form letter for this cartoon:

Thanks for your letter.

In fact the idea for the cartoon was suggested to me by a friend who is African-American. It wasn't racist. Nor am I. I have been doing this for nearly thirty years, and any review of my work will prove that no racism attaches. Further, I am a decorated Vietnam veteran who voted for Nixon once, GHW Bush twice and even for Bob Dole. So keep your labels.

Ms. Rice had told America that she knew for certain that the nuclear and mass destruction weapons existed. For certain. Then once the war is on and over a thousand GI's get killed, she said last week that she didn't know anything for certain, and that she never said it was certain and it was all the CIA's fault and Clinton did the same thing and blah-blah. A litany of excuses. She reminded me of Prissy, a character in the film "Gone With the Wind", who knew all about birthin babies, until an actual baby was on the way, and then she didn't know nuthin about birthin babies.

Nothing racist about it at all. Just the standard lies told by a political operative, out of her depth, who happens to be African- American. Whenever this administration is in trouble they send out Condi Rice because the press, which is mostly white and male, gives her a far easier treatment than they would a white male.

Meanwhile, our troops are dying and being greviously wounded in a war that could have been avoided, or at least unsought. Ms. Rice's (and other's) statements about the aluminum tubes are the same kind of lie as the Gulf of Tonkin lie from Lyndon Johnson's people. 55000 GI's died for that lie.

Even so, I appreciate your comments and will bear your remarks in mind in the future. For the record I do not work for the NY Times.

Jeff Danziger1 212 262 5840

Now, I never mentioned racism in my 7 word email; I can only suppose Danziger heard from many others who did accuse him of it.

I think he's probably telling a half truth. I'm sure he has no prejudices against Democratic African-Americans. I mean, as he implies in the first line of his letter, some of his best friends are...well, you know how it goes.

Update: Danziger later took the cartoon down from his site--see more correspondence between us.