It won't get printed.

Editors:

Why does your board keep publishing cartoons by Jeff Koterba of the Omaha World-Herald? I'm from southwest Iowa, so I know Koterba's work well. Typically he illustrates a very simple editorial position of the paper *right next* to the OWH's editorial. His topics are thus severely limited.

Koterba's drawing skills leave much to be desired. Compare his work to David Fitzsimmon's. Koterba is an amateur; Fitz could actually be an artist.

And so often Koterba's cartoons depend on Rightist assumptions, or even impossible assumptions. Take today's cartoon, where two shoppers walk near a car with anti-Bush bumper stickers, saying "Do you ever wish some Americans would redirect their anger toward real enemies like al-Qaida, Iran, Nort Korea, Syria..." The first assumption is that expressing "anger" at foreign countries would actually do something. If I say, "I'm angry at North Korea," does North Korea hear me? But if I write a letter to the editor saying that Bush's foreign policy has failed, and that America can do better, that sentiment will make a difference.

The other assumption is that the Bush Administration shouldn't even be criticized, nor US citizens even *think critically* about our government's actions. Indeed, we should just shop.

Thomas Oliphant is a much better cartoonist and writer. Koterba just does not bring a critical, smart, intelligent, or well-drawn cartoon to the table. His work is much like the OWH editorial board's positions: arrogant, insulary, uncomfortable with questioning or activism. In a phrase, wary of anything but white Christian pro-business Republican ideology.

I am on the Left, but I can clearly see that Koterba does a disservice to the complexity of the Right with his self-congratulatory cartoons.

End letter. I can't post the cartoon I'm commenting on. The one below gives a taste of his work:

I'll paraphrase for the cartoonist: "moral relativism" (whatever that is) bad, Pope & Christianity good. This is so simplistic, to the point of being stupid. Koterba has little skill in the editorial cartoon format, period. That's a horrid picture of a Dracula, too. And look at all the white space.

This one is just in bad taste, indicative of the manipulative way the Right has used and overused 9/11 for its own political ends, disregarding and disrespecting those that died:


The importance of the statement here does not match the importance of the image of the WTC towers. The cartoon, as usual, is self-congratulatory and unserious -- and uses the most serious of images offhand. This is the cartoon of a narcissist, since for Koterba, it was more important to get a cartoon out that day than it was to craft one without referring to a tragic event where real people died. For shame.