Wednesday, November 08, 2006
Moral equivalence watch: a view from Ireland
One of the most striking things about the European press is its passion for establishing equivalent morality among multiple wrongs. Considering the degree to which the European chattering classes pride themselves on their sophistication and nuance -- at least compared to the blundering Americans -- their inclination at least to imply equivalence between various acts of "violence," for example, reveals extraordinary rigidity underneath the patina of subtlety. Behold, a political cartoon in yesterday's Irish Times (click to enlarge):
The caption reads "Saddam voted OFF, but the Danses Macabres go on...". Along with Robert Mugabe and the dirtbag who runs the Sudan, the cartoonist draws George W. Bush dancing with a skeleton with the label "you name it... we've bombed it..." and Tony Blair dancing with a rattled bubbleheaded Arab labeled "Iraq." Does the cartoonist really believe this equivalence -- I suspect so -- or is it all a cover so that he can draw the mullah in an Iranian-style turban dancing with a skeleton that says "the world"?
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