Drawing Fire

Abstract

An examination of editorial cartooning of the War on Terror reveals the pressures put on cartoonists to conform to the Bush administrations dogma. Many cartoonists defended the president. Others held their fire, either in support of the administration or because they did not want to offend their editor or readers, or, worse, face the wrath of the administration or its supporters in the conservative news media. Some cartoonists, however, expressed their opposition to the war with powerful images, believing that giving the president a free pass during times of crisis undermines the democratic process, and democracy itself. Such cartoonists often paid a price by having their work suppressed by their newspaper; or, in some cases, by being forced to work under strict dictates or even being fired. Our purpose is to track the response to cartoonists who challenged the Bush administration and its policies when such criticism is needed most—when wartime corsets us in the ideological straitjackets of militarism and nationalism.