Chronicle Political Cartoons Imbalanced

I couldn't help but comment on the skewed nature of the editorial cartoons retrospective the Chronicle did in the Sunday Outlook section. The selection was representative of the past year, greatly skewed towards criticizing conservatives and Republicans, whilst letting the Democrat Party and liberals mostly off the hook.
 

On the first page, the first cartoon ridiculed Mitt Romney as a cultural and foreign policy lightweight, the second portrayed Texas Republicans as folks who didn't care about the poor, the third portrayed Fox News as not only lacking objectivity but deranged to boot, the fourth portrayed conservative Christians as culturally illiterate, the fifth singled out a conservative candidate for having said something stupid, and the sixth again ridiculed conservative Christians, comparing them to the Taliban.

 

The second page was a bit lighter on lampooning conservatives, but mostly complimentary to liberal points of view. Still, number two was implicitly critical of most conservative supreme court justices, number eight blamed Republicans for the fiscal cliff, and number nine portrayed small government proponents as being hypocrites. It's interesting to note that the closest the Chron cartoons came to criticizing President Obama or Democrats was to zing Obama on security for our Benghazi consulate, but even this criticism was mild. 

 

The first cartoon on page two, though, takes the cake. The cartoon portrays the residents of a supposedly well to do neighborhood as Elitists, living behind their walled community and criticizing President Obama for "dividing America". In all fairness, has there been anybody in American politics that has lived a more insulated, elitist life than our current president? He is the guy, after all, who not only abandoned the Fiscal Cliff negotiations so he could take his vacation in Hawaii, but expected Congress to stay in D.C. and continue working while he frolicked in paradise.

 

I look forward to the Chronicle injecting a little more balance into their humor in 2013. With a target rich environment including the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Attorney General Eric Holder, the Big Three networks, Occupy Wall Street, our academic Elites and scores of whacky advocacy groups, there's laughs aplenty to be had at the expense of the liberal community.

Pete Smith

Cypress