Our view: Political cartoonstricky to create,hard to choose

One of the charms of this job is that every afternoon, the time rolls around to look at cartoons.

No I don't turn on "Sponge Bob" or "The Simpsons." I'm talking about political cartoons, those little mixtures of artwork and pithy words intended to lend insight and maybe even brighten your day.

The Triplicate has 8-10 cartoons to choose from most days. Depending on the layout of the Opinion page, we print anywhere from one to three. Some days the choice is hard because there are so many good ones — genuinely humorous and/or insightful with a new slant on an issue.

Other days the choice is hard because none of them seems quite on target. Lately most cartoonists can't seem to wean themselves from the financial meltdown, but there just aren't that many fresh perspectives on that topic.

Some of the best political cartoons are highly partisan. I've got no problem using one that artfully skewers conservatives or liberals, but some balance is required.

If we run a cartoon with a liberal viewpoint one day, we should look for a conservative viewpoint the next. I prefer to balance the presentation on the same day if possible. Lately there have been more cartoons bashing Republicans than Democrats — read into that what you will.

The Triplicate is far too small to employ its own editorial cartoonist, which leaves local issues pretty much off-limits.

When I worked in Spokane, The Spokesman-Review employed a full-time cartoonist. He was a fine artist totally lacking in political insight. The daily result was a beautifully drawn embarrassment more likely to puzzle than amuse.

This particular cartoonist was an unabashed leftist, but that political persuasion doesn't have a monopoly on bad cartooning. When I moved to Colorado Springs, The Gazette employed a far-right cartoonist who was also a fine artist and equally unsophisticated and unfunny.

Maybe that's why they both got fired. Or maybe cartoonists are just considered expendable when it comes time to down-size, and that time has come to practically every newspaper in America.

Political cartooning is a tough gig, and even the best in the business have plenty of off-days.

Which brings me to a cartoon we recently published that caught some flak. It depicted Republican Colin Powell at a podium announcing his endorsement of Democrat Barack Obama. Someone held out a pitcher of Kool-Aid and asked, "More?" to which Powell responded, "Please."

I thought this was one of those unbiased, down-the-middle cartoons. I considered the drink to represent the bitter medicine that a Republican was presumably swallowing in endorsing a Democrat, a reference to the infamous vat of poison Kool-Aid in the 1978 Guyana mass-suicide.

Two readers have told me they saw it as indulging a crass racial stereotype — that black people are presumed to drink Kool-Aid in the same way they're said to eat lots of watermelon and fried chicken.

I sincerely doubt that's what the cartoonist had in mind, but I do regret unintentionally publishing a cartoon that some construed as racist.

I've since asked several people if they were familiar with the concept of drinking Kool-Aid being a racial stereotype. Some were; others weren't.

When I told a complaining caller that I wasn't familiar with that particular stereotype, I was told that I possessed a "narrow mind" and must have just "climbed out from under a rock."

Intolerance, it seems, comes in many flavors.