Who's the meanest of them all?

By Dennis Byrne

Political Mavens

It didn’t take Rob Rogers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editorial cartoonist, much imagination to create this cruel slander:

It depicts President George W. Bush as a beach lifeguard, peering through binoculars from his “embryo guard” stand. Out in the surf are three drowning people, one calling out, “I have cancer!” another, “Help, I have Alzheimer’s!” and the third, “Help, I have Parkinson’s!” Bush is on his cell phone telling someone, “All quiet here.”

It’s a mediocre effort as far as editorial cartoons go, something that you can expect when it’s based on the kind of ignorance that Rogers puts on display. But what really stands out is the cartoon’s “mean-spiritedness,” a vice the political left often ascribes to Republicans and Conservatives, because they supposedly hate such concepts as civil rights and equality and such people as immigrants, minorities, and impoverish. The people who hate Bush are, we’re supposed to believe, noble, caring and compassionate, never uttering a mean word.

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