Time’s Cartoons of the Year for 2006 certainly have a liberal tilt. None of them mock American liberals. Two promote them. The list starts with a Kerry-defending serious cartoon, "I’d rather be insulted by a botched joke than die in a botched war." It ends with Nancy Pelosi arriving in the Capitol to "Clean the House."
Republicans and conservatives are mocked. A joke mocks that Dick Cheney should invite Valerie Plame on a hunting trip, that Dennis Hastert is getting his "just desserts" in Foleygate for pursuing the Clinton sex scandals, and the Verizon guy is on the line with an NSA wiretapper who’s thrown the Constitution in the garbage can. John Wayne seems to be in cardiac arrest in Heaven after learning the plot of "Brokeback Mountain."
The other cartoons or harmless or strange. The cartoon on Islamic rage over Mohammed cartoons doesn’t condemn Islamic censorship, merely makes fun of what trouble cartoonists found. There’s a World Cup joke and an airline-search joke.
I suppose the lone conservative cartoon of the bunch is Marshall Ramsey’s take on how Uncle Sam would give the U.N. spinach after Hugo Chavez’s Bush the Devil speech. But it could be argued that a liberal sees in this cartoon a menacing Uncle Sam.
