syndicated comic printed by AGN blames 9/11 on African-Americans

Stay with me here. Today the Amarillo Globe-News and other right-wing rags printed the latest installment of the depraved Mallard Fillmore comic strip. In the strip, wingnut cartoonist Bruce Tinsley portrays Barack Obama sending the following "Mallentine" to Ted Kennedy:

I forgive you for calling me "Osama Bin Laden."
Though I wonder what you were thinking. . .
Was it racist? (Perhaps you "can't tell us apart"?)
Or just simply that you'd been drinking?

Now, as an English teacher, I have to comment on Mr. Tinsley's dreadful sense of rhythm. And I wouldn't have used a gag as tired as Ted Kennedy's drinking when I was a junior-high school newspaper cartoonist.

But it's the "Was it racist? (Perhaps you 'can't tell us apart'?)" line that truly disturbs. This bitter line is usually said of people who are of the same ethnic group. Tinsley is deliberately conflating African-Americans with Middle-Easterners in order to muddy the waters and blame 9/11 on the black man.

What, too much of a stretch? C'mon this is Mallard Fillmore, the 'toon that provided the visuals for the Wall Street Journal's "lucky duckies". And don't even get me started on Tinsley's stereotypical portrayal of the Irish. You know: Kennedy. Drunk.

SPACEDARK