Author: Ruben Bolling

Okay, against my better judgment, I'm going to take on James Lileks's piece criticizing my latest comic strip, point by point. I've never done something like this before, and I really hope I never do it again.

"The only way you could get some New Yorkers to oppose the Ground Zero Mosque would be for Sarah Palin to endorse it. As it happens, she is critical of the idea, which is all some need to know."

The logic here is impeccable:  1. "Some" New Yorkers are so predictably liberal they'd certainly endorse the GZM.   2. The only principle that would trump that would be their knee-jerk hate of Sarah Palin.  3. Turns out Sarah Palin is critical of the GZM.  4. Therefore, Sarah Palin's opposition is the reason these "some" New Yorkers endorse it.  Because that's all "some" need to know!  Q.E.D.

 "It’s always amusing when people incensed by religious bigotry against Islam strike back with reductio ad absurdum depictions of Christians."

I'm obviously not making fun of Christians; I'm making fun of certain specific religious beliefs, and the overreaching of the state into religion, and I think Mr. Lileks knows that perfectly well.  I believe there are liberal Christians in America.  There are also plenty of conservative Christians who don't believe in the insane divine retribution mocked here.   This is a reference to the Establishment Clause; if the state stops Muslims from building a mosque, we've violated that Constitutional principle, and we may as well have a state-sponsored religion with a political agenda.

"But wait, there’s more: the Republican 9/11 memorial would also have a "Muslim-free Zone" because GOPers are racist and xenophobic, and hate ay-rabs."

Well, if the GOP wants to stop American Muslims from building a place of worship on their own land, that is the next logical step.  We can ban them from certain areas because, come on, it wouldn't be properly respectful.

"It would have “a Memorial to First Responders that commemorates their denial of health care – a reference, of course, to the Republicans' insistence that Congress might shave a buck or two from the Robert Byrd Institute for the Study of Robert Byrd to pay for the benefits."

Okay, Mr. Lileks thinks the bill to provide health care to first responders should be funded by reducing the Democrats' pork boondoggles, instead of closing a tax loophole that shields corporate income from taxation.  Fair enough.

If there’s anything amusing about the work, it’s the context: to the cartoonist, this is the Republican response to the Mosque. Which almost suggests the Mosque is the Islamic response to 9/11. Which of course it isn’t. The Cordoba Center funders were as surprised as anyone when they found out how close to Ground Zero the site turned out to be.

This is the most puzzling paragraph in the piece.  "Which almost suggests the Mosque is the Islamic response to 9/11."  I'm actually baffled.  Is Mr. Lileks being sarcastic here?  Because there's nothing in the comic that could remotely lead you to that conclusion, and he seems to know that by adding the "almost."  As in: almost, but actually not.  In fact, the comic does nothing but indicate the assumption that the community center proposal is simply about a community center being built in the neighborhood; the map is there to show that the "no-Muslim wall" goes out far beyond Ground Zero and into an actual neighborhood.

So, without this made-up context, Mr. Lileks finds nothing amusing about the work.  Which is his right as an American.

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UPDATE 8/6, 2:12 ET:  Yay, James Lileks responded!  Well, sort of…  he mentioned that I had a response, and said he's too busy to read it.  I truly believe it; this guy is nothing if not mind-bogglingly prolific.  Not as much fun as the full-out internet-fight I was looking forward to, but he did sic his commenters on me.

And I absolutely love what one commenter said — the highest praise a cartoonist can get — likening me to "a ten-year-old to garner[ing] laughs by placing his hand in his armpit and pressing downward."  Finally, somebody understands me!

Anyway, my comics generate all kinds of blowback, and the only reason I responded so vigorously to this piece is that I really do respect and admire Mr. Lileks's writing.

James Lileks, a conservative with whom I disagree politically but whose writing I admire a great deal, wrote a takedown of this week's comic.

I'm very proud of the comic, how many people have liked it, and the attention it's been getting.  But I do regret that some people are inferring from it a view that is generally disdainful of western or mid-western views.  The point I tried to make with that preamble is that the Muslim community center is a New York City neighborhood issue.  The "white, western right-winger" I was referring to was Sarah Palin, who had injected herself into the debate.  New Yorkers are the ones who have to live next to Ground Zero, and who live with the lion's share of the terrorist threat.  Our laws of course allow the building of the community center, and our community leaders wisely and bravely support it.  I would guess that we have the greatest concentration of ethnic and religious minorities than anywhere in the nation, and so we are the ones who have to find a way to all live together.  Right across the street from the Ground Zero site is an active, busy, diverse neighborhood, not a shrine to whatever a former governor of Alaska or a conservative blogger in Minneapolis thinks is proper and respectful.

Now, admittedly, for the purposes of satire, I conflated that neighborhood issue with the Ground Zero memorialization and actual substantive national issues, and that may have looked like I was saying that only New Yorkers have the wisdom to deal with terrorism, health care costs for responders, etc.  But I thought it was clear I was using the local community center issue as a jumping-off point to make larger points about national policies.

Anyway, I've written far, far more than I normally would about one of my comics — I think they should stand or fall on their own merits, not the cartoonists' explanations and statements.

But in case this response has gained James Lilek's attention, I'd just like to say: The Dennis the Menace artist whose detailed, tight line you properly admire is Al Wiseman, who did all of the art in the early comic book version and was superb — I regard that as some of the best comic book cartooning in history.  Hank Ketcham created the character and drew, in a looser inking style, only the newspaper feature.

Impassioned, strangely Barbary-centric comment on this week's comic, from a Boing Boing reader:

I'll gladly make the deal of not having westerners comment about what is going on in New York IF New Yorkers will please shut the hell up about anything going on in the Midwest or South. But since New Junkers treat the idea of allowing citizens to have guns as terrorist ideals (Permit? We don't follow that pesky equal protection clause here in new york) I dont think the deal will ever be accepted (I mean it was the Barbary states that introduced that 2nd amendment right?).
Though here are some hypothetical questions. Would christians cheer on a massive monument to the greatness roman gladiators in the middle of the Vatican? Would Lakota be please with a church of Custer built on their lands? How bout a victory column for hitler in Tel Aviv?
Though I guess I could go worship at one of the baptist churches at Mecca….oh wait, there aren't any.
But to many on this board their thinking seems to be "why not have a monument to the reason thousands of americans were killed right on their final resting place.". I mean you do remember the 9/11 attacks were carried out in the name of Islam right?
As for New Yorkers having balls? Please. They want the mosque built because they think it will lessen the chance of attack. Hell remember when they bitched like little choir girls when they didn't get every last dime of terrorism funding despite getting a larger percent then anyone else? New Yoerks are akin to the US government in their first dealings with the Barbary pirates. If you give them what they want and kiss their ass they surely will leave you alone.

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…here is the map I drew of downtown NYC for this week's comic.  I guess I don't want all the work that became obscured by the lettering to go to waste.

This one was published right Congress voted to raise the minimum wage…

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The Fiddler in the Subway, by Gene Weingarten

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