New York Post Cartoon Has Paterson's Seeing Eye Dog Resigning

[IndianaGreen]

Sean Delonas Cartoons



http://www.nypost.com/opinion/cartoons/delonas.htm

New York Post Cartoon Has Paterson's Seeing Eye Dog Resigning

The New York Post cartoonist who made headlines for his infamous depiction of the author of the stimulus (presumably President Obama) as a crazed ape is stirring up controversy again with a work that makes fun of New York Gov. David Paterson's blindness.

This past Thursday, Sean Delonas drew a cartoon that showed Paterson's seeing-eye dog entering his office with a letter of resignation -- signed with a paw print. In the background Paterson is seen crying and saying, "Not You Too!!!"

It's a provocative swipe -- designed, of course, as a commentary on all the allies ditching the governor as he becomes immersed in ethics scandals. But it can also be interpreted as a cheap shot at Paterson's disability. The first legally blind governor to hold the office of governor, Paterson doesn't in fact require the aid of a seeing-eye dog to get around.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/05/new-york-post-cartoon-has_n_487865.html

I think the Delonas cartoon is quite appropriate for a governor that remains blind to his own culpability in the cover up of a sexual assault by one of his aides. Paterson should resign!

[MineralMan]

1. Cheap shot. Deserves scorn.

[IndianaGreen]

2. Not a cheap shot. Paterson is a scumbag that tried to cover up a sexual assault.

And he better resign before he causes more damage.

[MineralMan]

5. So, it's OK to mock his blindness, then?

Really? He doesn't even use a dog.

The cheap shot I refer to is the attack on his disability. Do you disagree?

[IndianaGreen]

7. Paterson is hiding behind his disability and his race

He is a scumbag, and should be treated as all scumbags.

[MineralMan]

8. Please don't be obtuse. I'm not talking about the Governor.

I'm talking about the cartoon. If you want to talk about the Governor, I can't help you. I know almost nothing about him.

The cartoon was a cheap shot, and deserves scorn.

[Oak2004]

13. It's not a cheap shot

If I screwed up on the public stage and a cartoonist depicted the wheels coming off my wheelchair, they'd be making a point using one of my more obvious physical traits. If I was able bodied, smoked cigars, and a cartoonist drew one blowing up in my face, they'd be doing the same thing. And it would not be a cheap shot if, knowing some people my age wear wigs, I was portrayed as having a distinctive hairstyle blown off in the wind (even though I personally don't wear one).

Ob the other hand if a cartoonist portrayed me as too lame to be competent, or Patterson as too blind to see what was happening around him, it would be a cheap shot.

What's the difference? The first mocks my (hypothetical) circumstances using the known fact of my disability as an incidental prop. The second mocks my disability and implies that it is why I am unfit for the position.

Too many people seem to think the appropriate answer to the invisibility of the disabled in society via exclusion and segregation in institutions is yet more invisibility, this time through pretending we're not there in plain sight, and gasp, we're unspeakably disabled. It's not a crime to note that someone is disabled. It's not wrong to crack a joke involving disability (lord knows, we do it all the time ). What is wrong is to treat us as if we're a shameful presence, we're incompetent, and we're less than human, whether or not one does it by pointing one's finger and taunting us, or through conspicuous silence.

[asjr]

3. If the governor was Republican nothing

would be said about his "transgressions." If there is a legal investigation I am willing to wait for the answers. Everyone these days is being tried by the media and that is wrong. How about the governor of South Carolina? Is anyone really asking him to resign? There is a bit more than a little racism hanging over New York. They got rid of Spitzer because he had an affair. And he is a smart man. But of course he is a Democrat. The media rule! How about Wolf Blitzer toadying for Liz Whatshername? And for the most part they get by with it. I have to admit that cartoon is funny, but we are all doomed to be cartooned to death.

[Wilms]

4. But we'd be up in arms if a Repub did that.

So don't blame some of us for really being fair and balanced. K?

[asjr]

6. I am not blaming any of you. I am part of

"you". I simply do not like the media making choices for me.

[Wilms]

9. How is this, in particular, making a choice?

And please compare it with the endless streams media disgorge.

[asjr]

11. If I have to explain any further there

is no point in my continuing.

[TankLV]

10. Not a cheap shot at all - it's a valid commentary...

sometimes a cigar is just a cigar...

[classysassy]

12. I hope the cartoonist that drew that sick toon

has good eye sight.He wiil still have to answer to his maker one fine day.