Pentagon trying to censor top US political cartoonist

John Aravosis at AMERICAblog tells us:

The Joint Chiefs of Staff just sent a menacing letter to the Washington Post over a cartoon. AMERICAblog received a copy of the letter at 10AM this morning, but as its veracity was not yet confirmed, we waited until E&P was able to confirm that is is for real.

Here's the letter the Joint Chiefs of Staff wrote to the Post.

And why not have the Pentagon try to stifle a free media while supposedly promoting freedom in Iraq? The US government just arrested one of President Bush's top political critics for threatening his life with a t-shirt. So why not now threaten a top political cartoonist for drawing a cartoon that the Pentagon doesn't like? Why not use the power of government to try to censor the media, something that's a direct violation of that pesky and quaint 1st Amendment to the US Constitution - you remember, that document the Bush administration doesn't think is relevant.

I have no problem with citizens speaking out about political cartoons they find offensive - hell, we've done it recently with the anti-gay cartoon in the Post. But when the government does it, that's a whole other story that smacks of censorship, especially when that government is the Pentagon threatening you during wartime.

It will be interesting to see if the Post replied to the Pentagon. They sure didn't reply when it was a homophobic cartoon they published.



Hey, here's a thought. Now that the Joint Chiefs have addressed the insidious threat cartoons pose to our troops, perhaps they can move on to less pressing issues like getting them their damn body armor.

Sadly, there are those who need the joke explained. Atrios helps them out...

"The central theme of the cartoon is that Rumsfeld is an asshole, which he is. They repeatedly deflect criticism of the civilian leadership by implying it's a criticism of the troops.