Did Nick Anderson (Houston Chronicle) Get It Right?

On July 28th, 2009, Nick Anderson of the Houston Chronicle published a Sarah Palin political cartoon. It caught my eye. It was Pro-Palin! Wow, this cartoonist understands the reality of the world we live in.

What was this cartoon?

The first frame shows a Sarah Palin in a helicopter, shooting at a wolf on the ground. The second frame shows the same scene, but with a reporter in the helicopter with a camera pointed at a Sarah Palin on the ground.

How true this cartoon rings!

Then, I noticed two things about the cartoon that make me realize that Nick Anderson's love for Sarah Palin may not be as it seems.

The cartoon is captioned "Sarah Palin's World". The wolf is drawn to appear as a lovable creature with begging eyes.

Now, why would my immediate reaction to Nick's cartoon be that it was Pro-Palin? And why would Nick put out a cartoon that would have such an unintended effect on people like me?

You see, packs of wolves are not cuddly cartoon creatures with begging eyes. Historians have long attributed the slow advance of the Russian empire to the inability of man to conquer the wolf. Packs of wolves would eat children and families at every opportunity, preventing development of the Russian territories into the economies of Europe and America. It has been a scant one hundred years since wolves enveloped an entire continent in darkness. And, back then, Alaska was a part of Russia. Today's slow emergence from darkness is thanks in large part to man's modern achievements, such as the automobile and the helicopter.

Nick's symbolism could not greater and could not be more on-point. Palin in that helicopter is a cartoon symbol of America's and Russia's emergence -- of man's emergence -- from a hostile, primitive, inhospitable and animal-infested environment -- to the world of thriving factories, cities and transportation infrastructure that we have today. Without the Palins of yesterday and today, Nick and I would be fending off wolves and bears and rattlesnakes to find food for our families.

You see, to get Nick's cartoon, you must also immediately see shooting a wild wolf as something more sinful than destroying a person. His first frame is taking aim at a wolf, his second frame is taking aim at a person. Again, Nick's inadvertent symbolism is right on point. The cameraman is one wolf of a nation-wide pack of wolves, each one aiming a camera and biting off a piece of Palin's character and reputation.

The point that astonishes me is that I don't believe Nick would have put out such a cartoon if he recognized how Pro-Palin it was, or if he realized how much it reflected reality and historical truth in a message opposite of what he intended. It astonishes me that we have drifted so far as to venerate a wild wolf above a human. Likewise, to not see the media-pack with their cameras as so many times more deadly to our society and our way of life.

Has our love-affair with socialism created such an engrained fantasy-view of the world --- to have taken us so far from reality --- that our journalists can no longer see the world around them? They say it is "Sarah Palin's World". But, it has nothing to do with Sarah Palin -- the attacks are made in our world.

Perhaps it is Nick who is holding the bigger gun. Perhaps it is Nick and his pack who are hunting down the Palins of the world. But, actually, is us with the begging eyes. Yesterday, that wolf ate some of our ancestors, today our journalists are eating us.

(c) 2009 Knobloch. All rights reserved. Contact for publication permission. http://www.charlesknobloch.blogspot.com/