BibliOdyssey has a collection of cartoon maps of Europe symbolizing the European conflict in the first World War.

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h/t: the Daily Dish

The New Nebraska Network has been keeping up on the Obama / Hitler columns by Midlands Business Journal publisher Bob Hoig, and this week, Hoig decided to fire back (since, of course, the guy who compares someone to Hitler is clearly the victim here). It’s getting past the pathetic point to where it’s almost funny.

Hoig leads by referring to NNN as “A stylish Web site with all the markings of what super-rich liberals might expect for their money.” Not that Hoig’s past two editorials would cause anyone to confuse him with someone who does his research, but that line gave me an extra laugh considering the recent Journal Star story on NNN that pointed out the blog is run via an eight-year-old PC in Kyle Michaelis’ living room.

Inaccuracies are no stranger to Hoig’s attempt to play his role as victim of the vast liberal media. He writes “The New York Times, once an icon of fearless journalism … is the arm of the Obama campaign, as Hillary Clinton learned.” Apparently Obama told the Times to endorse Clinton. And facts (like the recent media study from The Center for Media and Public Affairs — which found that the three broadcast networks were remarkably tougher on Obama than on McCain during the first six weeks of the general-election campaign) really just get in the way of a good whine.

Disgust is spreading in the community, as letters have started hitting the two dailies — both in the World-Herald Public Pulse and in the Journal Star’s letters to the editor.

Kyle at NNN said it best by noting “this display of ignorance and indecency has actually become a matter of pride for Hoig, saying all that really needs to be said about this situation. His words and his attitude speak for themselves and are far more damning than any response I might possibly make.”

see Journal Star cuts 16…

The Lincoln Journal Star announced 16 cuts today, eight of which were from the newsroom. The story puts much of the blame on the rising cost of newsprint but fails to address whether or not any cutbacks were ordered from above.

Last week, LJS owners Lee Enterprises announced their Q3 profits fell more than 87 percent since the same quarter last year. The company had already been forced to revise its 2008 Q2 losses, acknowledging that losses originally reported as $4.5 million were actually $716.4 million.

Lee’s value has dropped 93 percent since late 2004, when it was valued around $2 billion. Lee was trading in the $45-50 range in November and December 2004; the stock price has bounced back above $3 after dipping in the $2 range last week, putting the company’s value around $145 million.

UPDATE: “Mary E. Junck [CEO] of Lee Enterprises (LEE) pocketed a 17.8% increase to earn a bit less than $3.4 million as her company’s stock skidded 52.3%.” – newsosaur

In today’s column, Don Walton at the Lincoln Journal Star comments on the comparisons between Obama and Hitler printed in the Midlands Business Journal.

A stunning editorial in the Midlands Business Journal this month comparing Obama to Adolf Hitler: “While Obama is not Hitler, still there are similarities,” publisher Bob Hoig wrote. “I was startled to realize the increasing use of Nazi Party techniques by the Barack Obama campaign,” he wrote. Geez.

From the article’s comments:

There seems to be a weekly contest to see who can speak or print the most racially repressed comment about Sen. Obama. It appears Bob Hoig and the Midwest Racist Business Journal are this week’s winner. Congratulations on losing your credibility!

and

…Hoig’s editorial is a blatant example of fear-mongering, distortion, smears, and misdirection; in other words, a textbook example of a political tactic often employed by those on the right (especially by the disciples of Karl Rove). One can easily see how intellectually bankrupt and shameless those on the right who would use these tactics have become, and how desparate and jealous they are…

You can read more about these columns here and here.

A few days ago, I wrote about the recent Midlands Business Journal editorial in which publisher Bob Hoig compared Barack Obama to Adolph Hitler. It’s perfectly normal for Hoig’s editorials to make Harold Andersen look like Rainbow Rowell, but that was a particularly shameful move worth drawing attention to. And then I figured that was the end of it.

Well my jaw literally dropped this afternoon when I saw this week’s editorial, entitled “Obama embraces socialist remedies, Hitler’s hoopla.” Hoig not only revived last week’s dip into what is perhaps the most ill-advised argument in all of logic, but pushes this argument even further!!

He uses this week’s column (and the words demagogue [twice], demagogic and demagoguery) to illustrate the ways in which Obama seems to be consciously emulating the steps taken by Adolph Hitler in the Third Reich’s rise to power.

Like Hitler, Obama is a great organizer. Hitler created the Hitler Youth, hiking clubs, travel clubs, culture clubs. Obama already is busy with plans to create corps for various forms of national and community service.

Hitler produced torchlight parades to delight crowds, but he could add nighttime book burnings and street violence when it was deemed the crowd needed converting into a mob. It will be instructive to learn if or how Obama orchestrates the crowds he assembles, starting with Denver.

Warning to all hiking clubs: you are now likely on Hoig’s shortlist of potential Nazis.
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via The Daily Dish:

The Daily Cartoonist linked to a July 17 L.A. Times story that broke the news of News & Observer cartoonist Dwayne Powell’s demotion and subsequent resignation as part of a greater piece on how editorial cartoonists are a dying breed.

The story is nothing new — I’ve written before about how rarely a month passes without another article fretting about the demise of editorial cartooning. Usually I make some snide comment about how these people are interchangeable / are proving their own irrelevance / typical “they have the good jobs and I don’t” professional jealousy masked as criticism.

But I just had to point out this juxtaposition in the L.A. Times article, which I really doubt was a subtle dig at those who occupy The Big Seats. Commentator James Rainey closes the column by saying he’s worried the loss of cartoonists will continue to “dumb-down an audience that doesn’t need any help sinking into complacency.”

Yet immediately before that kicker, Rainey offers this quote:

“McCain’s reputed explosive temper is a tantalizing prospect,” said Steve Kelley of the New Orleans Times-Picayune, “as is Obama’s abiding belief that there is no problem so simple that government can’t find a way to waste enormous resources failing to fix it.”

On the visual side, Kelley sees something of a replay of the 1996 election between President Clinton and Sen. Bob Dole. In shorthand: “Mr. Charisma against the guy who yells at kids to stay off his lawn.”

Way to dig for that insight and nuance that only cartoonists can provide, Steve.

I’ve also been meaning to bring up the cartoonist response to the recent New Yorker Obama cover controversy, particularly as it relates to these two virtually identical cartoons from R.J. Matson and the usually brilliant Tom Toles.

At first glance, I guess I could see how someone might think these cartoons are making a powerful, profound statement. But anyone with even a loose grip on the concept of satire is probably going to quickly figure out that the difference in context is what makes satire satire, and therefore these cartoons are almost embarrassing as an attempt at a point.

Put Archie Bunker’s lines in the mouth of a real human on the street and they’re racist; put them in Archie Bunker’s mouth and they’re commentary. That’s how satire works.

So these cartoons are literally correct, and there’s nothing more insightful here than drawing a dog labeled “dog” and a cat labeled “cat” (not that there aren’t cartoonists who would do that) and then leaving it at that.

And for all the accusations of the New Yorker‘s elitist sense of humor — criticism of which is undeniably part of the “point” of these cartoons — does the elitism of those who dare employ satire even approach the condescension of their critics, whose argument seems to be that the New Yorker failed to take the red-state simpletons into consideration?

So getting back to Rainey’s column, we now have cartoonists apparently oblivious to the defining qualities of satire who are essentially rewarding gleeful ignorance while acting almost ashamed of satire. I think the differences between this — and legendary-slash-mythical cartoonists of the past who changed the world around them with their biting insight — are painfully obvious.

How long are people going to keep insisting that the “dumbing down” of public discourse is all the corporations’ fault? And how long will others keep believing it?

If you’re not among the small number of subscribers to Omaha’s Midlands Business Journal, you probably missed the latest column by publisher Bob Hoig. And boy, it’s a doozy.

Back when I was a reporter at MBJ, sources would occasionally make disparaging comments to me about the paper’s extreme-right politics. One business owner joked about how he needed to start subscribing to the paper to get his weekly dose of conservative fanaticism; another business owner flat-out refused the free publicity of having a story done because of the politics of the paper.

Hoig’s latest column probably won’t change any minds; or if it does, it probably won’t be in the way he expects, for he has gone and woken Leo Strauss, making his case for how Obama resembles — you guessed it — Adolph Hitler.

Hoig explains how he came upon this theory when re-reading Paul Johnson’s “Intellectuals,” saying the Obama campaign is using “Nazi techniques.”

The message I took away was that Republicans, Independents and Democrats need to think hard about this intellectually impressive man, Barack Obama, and not vote for him simply because he is charismatic, a spellbinding orator, a messiah figure inveighing against the past while ill-defining the future, black, or a messenger of hope and vague ideas about change.

Any of the above can be charming individually or, at worst, harmless.

Taken, however, as “all of the above,” similar traits unleashed the most magnetic, flawed and dangerous individuals upon the 20th Century that the world has ever known.

Apparently, people voted for Hitler because he was black. (??!?)
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