Back after some minor surgery and a short vacation so I’m going to do some intellectual puddle jumping to catch up.

I’m not a big fan of radio host Michael Savage, but his declaration that liberalism as practiced these days is a form of insanity is starting to resonate with me.

Some weeks ago the editor of Durham Herald-Sun, Bob Ashley said he spent a few days responding to a number of phone calls and e-mails objecting to a cartoon that the readers thought was distasteful. When he explained that the cartoon’s intended target was not what the reader thought it was most readers then understood and were mollified.

A couple of things about this event. If a cartoonist or editor has to explain what the cartoonist meant by a particular cartoon the cartoonist has failed. Period. This is basic communication 101. If you have something to say your craft had better be good enough to think of a way to convey exactly what you want to say. It shouldn’t require the observer to make several leaps to get to your intention. It must be evident.

Standup comics and joke writers understand this. The setup and punchline must, well, punch, in order to get the laugh. The audience should not have to make extra connections to get the joke. And any references the joke might allude to had better be common knowledge. One doesn’t make a Hamlet joke in a noisy bar.

Ashley has no disagreement from me on the freedom of the press. But editors must also be alert to flat out misrepresentations.

Which brings me long way around to the work of a cartoonist the Herald-Sun uses, R.J. Matson, whose cartoon showed the collapsed Minneapolis bridge with a sign that read “Your Tax Cuts At Work.”

Now, it’s one thing to make a bad joke, or construct badly a potentially good joke. It’s another thing to be misleading and wrong. The causative leap of tax cuts to the bridge collapse is astoundingly incorrect, even given the latitude enjoyed by cartoonists. By Matson’s damaged logic the sign could just as easily have said “Your Earmarks At Work” or “Your Entitlements At Work,” and those observations would be equally ignorant and irrelevant.

The “culprit” in such sad events is the choice politicians and bureaucrats make in allocating what money they have, not tax cuts — nor earmarks, entitlements or any other straw man a writer elects. In Minnesota they chose to spend money on, among other things, a light rail, city-to-airport line called “Hiawatha,” a choice that clearly neglected retro-fitting the bridge. Further, according to the Wall Street Journal, the light rail system has had a negligible effect on traffic congestion. The money was there, but the politicians used it unwisely.

A sign that said “Hiawatha At Work” would have been closer to the truth, but Matson chose instead to pounce ghoulishly on this tragedy to advance a knee-jerk, Bush-hating political bias. It was a cheap shot, a form of humor lower than a pun and it amounted to cartoon malpractice.

Censorship and a responsibility to truth are not mutually exclusive. By serving truth, and his readers, Mr. Ashley would have been well within his First Amendment mandate to return said cartoon to sender with a note reminding him of his own responsibility to do some homework before putting pen to paper.

If Matson had done some thinking instead of the expected liberal knee-jerk, Bush hatred response, he might have given us a more accurate cartoon, and maybe even a thought provoking one. But I doubt it. Liberals have stopped thinking. Their arguments and objections are mostly emotionally based.

It’s why when you tell them you oppose Roe v. Wade they respond with, “So, you’d rather see girls dying in back alleys with a coat hanger in their vagina.” I’ve heard a variation of this retort often. Janet Reno’s misguided, uncalled for attack on Waco was “to save the children,” she “heard” were being abused. Ohmigawd, the children. The children. And they were saved by being burned to death.

Emotionalism is why the two billion dollar Minnesota surplus went into health care, art centers, sports stadiums and welfare benefits and the light rail system even though only 2.8% of the state’s commuters ride buses or rail to get to work while it gets 25% of the budget. Cars bad, bad, bad. Mass transit, art, welfare, good, good, good. It “feels” so much better than fixing a bridge.

Incidentally, Dame Janet bravely “took the responsibility” for the human barbecue she caused, but still managed to stay in her job. Wow! So brave. So standup. I’m getting all fuzzy and teary thinking about it. And Sherman Adams had to resign because his wife took a “vicuna” fur coat as a gift. Times sure have changed in the liberal, secular, Woodstock wave that began in the do-your-own-thing sixties.

See, I was just emotional and made a reference that might not be common knowledge. Adams was Eisenhower’s chief-of-staff who was forced to resign because he took that “vicuna” fur coat and an oriental rug from Bernard Goldfine, a Boston textile manufacturer who was being investigated for Federal Trade Commission violations. Maybe if Adams had burned the coat and rug he could have kept his job.

Liberals are all emotion. Emotion is irrational. Irrationality is a close cousin to insanity. Maybe Michael Savage is right.