The Gall of Ted Rall

Originally posted at The Festering Swamp on July 14, 2007

I posted this last July after Ted Rall published another of his typically asinine, anti-American cartoons. I forget what the original title of this entry was, but after I posted it Nancy suggested the title you see above. I think it very appropriate to re-post this denunciation of a known fifth columnist on a day set aside to honor those who have given their lives so we may be free. – Mike LaRoche

Most everyone reading this blog is familiar with Ted Rall, but for those who are not I will provide a quick recap. Ted Rall is a highly controversial columnist, blogger, and cartoonist. Among his most infamous public displays of anti-social idiocy was a 1999 column praising Columbine High School murderers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold wherein he wrote of the school's re-opening: "leaving a few bullet holes or bloodstains behind (perhaps with an explanatory plaque) might have served as a cautionary tale for future bullies and their victims." Because, you know, those thirteen kids just had it coming, not being sympathetic to the psychological anxiety that motivated their trenchcoat-wearing, self-mutilating killers.

Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Rall has turned his insane bile on the United States and its military. In numerous columns, blog entries, and cartoons, Rall has disparaged American troops in Iraq as "virtually indistinguishable from the SS," insulted deceased war hero (and ironically, Iraq invasion critic) Pat Tillman as "a sap" and someone who just wanted "to kill Arabs," and has called American soldiers mentally-challenged suicide bombers.

If you dismiss Ted Rall as being little more than a fringe loon, think again. His "work" has been widely recognized in mainstream circles. Among the awards Rall has received:

Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award
Society of Professional Journalists Deadline Club Award
James Aronson Award for Social Justice Graphics
First Prize from the Firecracker Alternative Press Awards
Best Book of the Year by Amazon.com
American Library Association's Best Books of the Year
Pulitzer Prize finalist

...and more. Rall enjoys the fame that living in the freest, most prosperous country in the world has allowed him to achieve, yet he thinks nothing of vomiting on those who risk life and limb to preserve the freedom that permits his artistic license and notoriety.

Inevitably, apologists of his will speak up and note his support of President Clinton's impeachment eight years ago or cite the similarity between remarks he and Ann Coulter made about "terror widows." But that does not in any way excuse his vile behavior and contemptuous attitude toward our troops and veterans.

When I think of people I've personally known who proudly served in the military – my father, my World War II-veteran grandfather, three Vietnam-veteran uncles, my late colleague (a psychiatry professor) who was shot down over Nazi-occupied France, broke out of a POW camp, and fought with the French resistance – I don't think of them as Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, or liberals. I think of them as Americans, as courageous men unafraid to put their lives on the line for friends and family.

Ted Rall thinks they are scum. I say if Ted Rall were scum, he'd be twice the man he is now.