November 19, 2004

WashingtonPost.com finally drops Ted Rall

Ted Rall has finally been given the axe from the Washington Post's web site.

Rall, whose cartoons give new meaning to the term "bedwetting liberal," has been under fire off and on since insulting former Arizona Cardinals player Pat Tillman, after his death with in combat in Afghanistan.

Rall's infantile scrawlings have included racially-tinged etchings against National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and most recently (and what got him yanked from the Post) a cartoon that showed a drooling mentally ill student.

Rall said he thinks the site dropped his work because of a Nov. 4 cartoon he did showing a drooling, mentally handicapped student taking over a classroom. "The idea was to draw an analogy to the electorate -- in essence, the idiots are now running the country," he told E&P.

"That cartoon certainly drew a significant amount of negative comment from our users," said WashingtonPost.com Executive Editor Doug Feaver when contacted by E&P. But he added that the decision to drop Rall was a "cumulative" one that had been building for a while.

"Ted Rall does very interesting work," Feaver said. "Some of it is not funny to an awful lot of people. We decided at the end of the day that it just did not fit the tone we wanted at WashingtonPost.com."

Rall was dropped effective Nov. 15, according to Feaver.

The Post received some complaints from readers criticizing the decision to drop Rall.

Rall himself criticized the site for the decision, saying that it was only over one "boneheaded drawing."

I, for one, won't be lamenting the Post's decision, but I'm sure there are plenty of other Kool-Aid drinkers who will.

If you've just GOTTA see the 'toon that got him finally yanked, it's below the fold.

The New York Times pulled Rall earlier this year -- though his syndicator, United Press Syndicate is still defending him.

Here's hoping that he's relegated to the alternative press out there, where they sit around in a circle and drink Kool-Aid together.

Posted by mhking at November 19, 2004 11:02 AM
Comments

I was going back through the archives for the Powell-Rice bashing cartoon called Uncle Tom's Cabin when I realized that i was wasting my time. Why dig through that crap when it's nice and sunny out?

Posted by: Laurence Simon at November 19, 2004 12:37 PM

Some of us "working stiffs" are still chained to the keyboard.

Posted by: Michael at November 19, 2004 02:26 PM

Well, that The Washington Post's loss then, isn't it?

Rall is easily one of the best cartoonists working (along with Tom Tomorrow, Matt Davies, Tom Toles, Jeff Danziger, Pat Oliphant, etc.)

Since Ted's honesty tends to grate with some people, I can understand how the Washington Post would drop him since the Post has a really uncomfortable relationship with honesty.

The Post prefers instead to tow the line for the Bush Administration - the lyingest most criminal administration in history.

Posted by: Jack Frost at November 19, 2004 07:33 PM

Check out my post on that....Very politically incorrect....Some things don't need to be joked about....PERIOD....You'd be amazed how simple YOU could become a vegetable by getting smacked in the right spot.....Think of THAT next time you decide to give a handicapped person a hard time...

Posted by: CrzyDJM at November 19, 2004 09:51 PM

Jack Frost, where will you be appearing next for your comedy act? Name one person in Bush's administration that has been charged with a crime. Just one. Now review the dozens of asshats from Clinton's administration that were not only charged, but CONVICTED, of crimes. It figures that facts don't matter to a liberal jackass, though.

The fact that you think Rall's simplistic scribbling qualify him as one of the best carttonists working today also says something about your appreciation of political satire and veracity. You leftards embrace anybody who is an advocate of making the foundations of our country crumble. I've got news for you, Bubba, the country voted against the liberal agenda. Quit your whining and live with it.

Posted by: skh at November 20, 2004 12:39 PM

'Name one person in Bush's administration that has been charged with a crime. Just one.'

Look, just because the Congress is too cowed to actually bring up charges doesn't mean these guys aren't criminal.

Check it out: There's this war going on over in a country called Iraq (you may have heard about it). The administration told us several reasons that that country was an imminent threat.

We were told that they had 'WMD' and could attack at any minute - after long searches and many taxpayer dollars, every search has come up empty. We we're told we were 'liberating' the country for Iraqis - but after we've killed civilians in the thousands, that doesn't seem to be the case.

You see, the Bush administration LIED to get us to go to Iraq causing a war that has needlessly cost the lives of over 1,100 of our soldiers and over 100,000 Iraqis. This illegal, businessman's war of first resort is a WAR CRIME, and the Bush administration should be held accountable.

Their insistance that the Geneva Conventions are antiquated and quaint notwithstanding.

'Now review the dozens of asshats from Clinton's administration that were not only charged, but CONVICTED, of crimes.'

I don't like the Clinton administration, either, but whatever they were convicted of none of it rises to the level of an illegal, businessman's war of first resort.

And besides, couldn't you get Clinton on something better than a blowjob? With all the actual criminal things Clinton was involved in, that was the best you could do?

A hollow victory, my friend.

'It figures that facts don't matter to a liberal jackass, though.'

What's with the name-calling? Why are you so hostile?

'You leftards embrace anybody who is an advocate of making the foundations of our country crumble.'

Uh... Ted doesn't make 'the foundations of our country crumble', he points out the hypocrisy of your favorite ideology and it pisses you off.

Your boys in the Bush administration however are managing to make ''the foundations of our country crumble' - take a gander at the Bill of Rights-shredding U.S.A.P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act sometime (no, I mean, REALLY look at it). Recall their attempts to place a highly descriminatory anti-gay amendment in to our Constitution. Watch them bankrupt the country morally and finacially in an illegal businessman's war of first resort in Iraq.

If you think that Ted's a threat to America, I'd have to wager you have your priorities out-of-whack.

'I've got news for you, Bubba, the country voted against the liberal agenda.'

No it didn't.

Bush stole the 2000 and 2004 elections and everybody knows it. In 2004, there's evidence everywhere and every glitch found so far has been in Bush's favor - EVERY ONE.

So please don't lecture me on your new agenda based on a false presidency.

'Quit your whining and live with it.'

How often have you typed this sentence in the last couple of weeks? I ask because it seems like a knee-jerk reaction to put it at the end.

I wasn't whining at all - in fact my tone is rather cheery. I like how you attack/slander me right off the bat for having a different viewpoint than you - very classy.

I suspect I won't be hearing from you again.

Posted by: Jack Frost at November 21, 2004 01:26 PM
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