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May 6, 2004 Ted Rall recently drew a comic strip in which he questioned whether the late Pat Tillman, football player-turned-soldier, was a hero. For those who are not familiar with Ted Rall, he is a political cartoonist who is found on, among other sites, the MSNBC site on the internet. His cartoons appear in approximately 140 publications at this writing. He is well known for portraying George W. Bush, our President, in ways that border on treason. Rall depicts the President as a feral monster wearing an overdone military commander’s outfit in the style of Ghaddafi. President Bush is depicted as more crazed than Vlad the Impaler, more evil than Hitler and more ruthless than Machievelli. The President of the United States always has detractors and there is always a small group of political cartoonists and commentators who exceed the bounds of good taste in their lust to bring down the current authority figure. Neither the actions nor the appearance of the character purported to be our President in Rall’s childishly scrawled cartoons resemble the man himself. George Bush is an intelligent man who, like John Kerry, was graduated from Yale and served his country as a member of the Armed Forces. He scored well on his SAT’s and has an MBA from the prestigious Harvard Business School. He was the Managing General Partner of the Texas Rangers before being elected Governor of Texas, then re-elected with a resounding 69% of the vote. He was then, of course, elected President of the United States. Ted Rall was graduated from Columbia University in 1991. His thesis was about American plans to occupy France as an enemy power at the end of World War II, which gives you an idea of where he “is coming from.” He likes to portray himself as a brave journalist because he actually went to Afghanistan and did some reporting from there. I am sure he took part in several firefights while overseas! Until now I classified Rall among the vermin that scurry at the feet of men like George W. Bush, an apparently necessary evil that is a part of having a free society and freedom of speech. But recent events have caused me to change my views. Ted Rall produced a cartoon in which he defamed one Pat Tillman, a star football player for the Arizona Cardinals who walked away from a multi-million dollar contract to serve his country. Tillman, who was greatly moved by the events of 9/11, decided that his country needed him and he was going to answer the call. He was killed in action in Afghanistan while on a mission to rescue other soldiers. He has since been awarded the Silver Star. In this cartoon, Rall has one of the characters stating that Tillman "falsely believed Bush's wars against Iraq and Afghanistan had something to do with 9/11. Actually, he was a cog in a low-rent occupation Army that shot more innocent civilians than terrorists to prop up puppet rulers and exploit gas and oil resources. So when Tillman got killed by the Afghan resistance, one word naturally came to mind: 'Uh -- idiot?' [says one person in the cartoon's final panel]. 'Sap?' [says another]. 'Hero!' [says an editor]." (Quote courtesy of Editor & Publisher.com) Pat Tillman was a brave and principled man who was universally admired by those who knew him. He was man enough to not only endure the vicious hits of the NFL but be one of those better known for being hitter rather than hittee. He could have continued his career, making his multi-millions, and no one would have thought a bit less of him. But Pat Tillman was an American and he took that seriously. He took it so seriously that he could not sit one the sidelines, as it were, while others of his generation risked their lives in his stead. Tillman took great pains to avoid any acclaim or personal gain from his enlistment in the military, seeking to be just another soldier serving his country. He died in the line of duty, yet another young man who was willing to risk his life in the service of his nation. Every soldier who tugs on that uniform is, in my view, a hero. Whether they are sitting behind a desk in a motor pool in Kansas or engaged in a heavy firefight in Iraq, they are the ones who give of themselves that the rest of us could have the benefits of living free in the United States of America. Pat Tillman was one who went out on the firing line and he was one of those who fell. They are all heroes, most especially those who pay the ultimate price for their bravery. But Ted Rall says that Pat Tillman was a “Sap.” Ted Rall says that Pat Tillman was an “idiot.” I say that were we a nation of Ted Ralls, we would never have broken free from England. We would never have helped save the world from totalitarian rule; we would never have taken the fight to the terrorists after 9/11. We would be under some form of despotic rule. The Ted Ralls would mutter under their breath but, like Gollum in the Lord of the Rings, be nothing but apologetic and sycophantic if challenged. But I further declare that we are a nation more like Pat Tillman than Ted Rall. We are the people who stormed the beaches at Normandy and a hundred Pacific Islands during World War II though facing a hailstorm of bullets bearing death. We are the people who are the land of the free because we are also the home of the brave. Bravery does not exist unless in the presence of risk. Bravery is not the lack of fear; it is the courage to carry on in the face of fear. Thank God for Pat Tillman and the millions like him who now, and in the past, have stepped to the fore in times of need. I believe Ted Rall’s political cartoons have become as offensive to public decency as a Janet Jackson breast or the words to a Ludacris rap song. Therefore, he has my attention. I am going to contact every site that I know of that publishes him and protest. If my paper printed him, I would write them as well. I want the publishers of this excrement to know that I do not appreciate it and will no longer be numbered amongst their readers should his cartoons continue to be published. I am sending out messages such as this: Dear Sirs, Specialist Tillman gave his life so that despicable cowardly acts like those perpetrated via the medium of Ted Rall’s recent "cartoon" are allowed in this country. Were Mr. Rall to express such points of view in a country like Iraq before we arrived there, he would have gone feet-first into a plastic shredder. In my opinion, no reputable organization would distribute the works of this treacherous lout! Thanks, Kimbal Binder Ted Rall richly deserves my attention. Now he has it. I hope he gets so much attention that he has to go work for a living rather than get paid for his amateurish drawings and anti-American rants. Ted, if you are reading this, I have a challenge for you. Go back to Arizona, walk into the locker room where Pat’s former teammates are gathered and tell them what an idiot and a sap he was. Otherwise, just shut up! ------------ About the author: Kimbal Ross Binder is a husband of one wife and parent of six child units of various sizes. He is a tennis bum, karaoke singer, punster and a reformed liberal who now admires Rush Limbaugh and hates to miss Fox News in the evening. You can pass along plaudits and invectives to: radarbinder@comcast.net ------------ |
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