Radical left-wing cartoonist Ted Rall -- who reveled in dismissing American servicemen as "idiots" -- was recently laid off. Editor & Publisher reported the story in an April 22 article:

NEW YORK Chalk up one more wildly talented cartoonist to be victimized by the economy.

“I’ve been laid off,” reads the headline on the blog of cartoonist Ted Rall, president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. Rall, an editorial cartoonist for Universal Press Syndicate, has served as editor of acquisitions and development at United Media for the past two years.

“My job was finding new talent -- comic strip artists, columnists and writers of puzzles -- to syndicate to newspapers,” Rall writes on his blog. “Considering the circumstances, I enjoyed remarkable success. ... I am proud of what I accomplished.” 

Rall may be virtually alone when it comes to taking pride in his work. Not content to keep his Hitler comparisons to elected politicians like George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, Rall often spilled his venom on the likes of American servicemen and 9/11 widows. In one of his most infamous drawings, he compared U.S. soldiers to Islamist suicide bombers (shown below page break):

For years, NewsBusters has been reporting the disgusting columns and cartoons of Ted Rall.

Sadly, the day before Election Day, Rall hit a new low.

Embedded below the fold -- done so to protect those who'd prefer not to be subjected to this detritus! -- is a video cartoon depicting Vice President Sarah Palin trying to assassinate President John McCain so that she can replace him in the White House (h/t NB reader Franklin J. Moss):

Riddle me this: when is a cartoonist as shallow and one dimensional as his own creations? When his name is Ted Rall. The San Antonio Express-News ran a short story covering a convention being held in Texas that is serving as a gathering place for some of the nation's increasingly fewer political cartoonists. Rall has been chosen as the president of this seemingly ever more irrelevant organization and apparently the Express-News found his glee at this nation's ills to be interesting copy.

Naturally, the Express-News gave us the Rallian set up for today's "ills":

An unpopular war, a shaky economy, the prospect of a border fence, a delicate climate seemingly seeking revenge this summer, soaring food and fuel prices, and a potentially polarizing presidential election -- it all adds up to a gloomy forecast for most Americans.

All these claims are, of course, liberal shibboleths and lack any context. Merely the mouthing of these topics is enough for the media to say "see, it's all going to hell."

I don't normally follow Ted Rall's work. But when J.M., a member of our military serving in Iraq, wrote NB about Rall's recent column and cartoon, I had a look. I'd say our soldier was being restrained in describing Rall's work as "particularly offensive."

I'm displaying one panel from his cartoon of October 22nd. You can view the whole of it here. As you'll note, the point is to celebrate the death of our soldiers, since they are "idiots" whose removal from the gene pool causes the average IQ back home to soar.

Ted Rall has created some truly offensive cartoons and articles during his career. However, this might be one of the most disgraceful statements made by a media representative since this war began (h/t Dan Gainor):

Ted Rall, the far left editorial cartoonist and anti-American pundit, has used his cartoons to slander our soldiers again. Remember - Ted was the one that mocked the death of Pat Tillman in one of his little drawings. This time he has really gone too far and I am shocked that no one has called him out on it.

In his little piece of so-called artwork from 11.10.05, Ted claims that the US Military is raping young boys in US custody. He cites McCain's anti-torture proposal as protecting detainees from "sodomy, anal rape and touching in the dirty place". In the last frame of his cartoon, Ted shows a blind-folded detainee bent over with one soldier telling another "Only rape the cute ones for now".