Chan Lowe boils it down.
There are a lot of cartoonists currently mocking Kim's haircut and portraying him as a nutcase, but Lowe is at least hinting at the real issue in all this:
Bluster.
Here's the thing: Unless you are knowledgeable about Korean culture, you don't likely have any sense of how Kim's take on the world fits the norm, or, to put it another way, he may be harsh but he may not be crazy.
If you're trying to provoke a war, then hurling insults is a constructive plan because demonizing your intended opponent is a good first step.
If that's not your goal, you might consider how tone-deaf our take on the Middle East has already been and where that has gotten us.
Start with bluster, because both Ahmadinijad in Iran, and Saddam Hussein in Iraq, blustered mightily, and people who understood the culture brushed it off as the sort of hot air expected of dynamic leaders in that part of the world.
But it gave the chickenhawks plenty of ammunition.
Specifically, Hussein's blustering calls for a "mother of all battles" provided the Cheney Administration an excuse for what may well be the most catastrophically stupid foreign policy move in American history.
Now the chickenhawks are back at it, deliberately glossing over the ongoing conflicts within the Iranian government in order to demonize that country so we can go back and give war in the Middle East another chance.
And I wonder if we're doing the same thing with Kim, only in a place where there is no oil to be won and where, as Lowe suggests, the only possible "victory" is that of one blustering nincompoop over another.
Matt Davies suggests that our nincompoop is wandering around without his crew, and this much separates the two: Whatever Kim's limitations as a world figure and a human being, he at least has a well-established family background of running the country and has surrounded himself with people who know what the hell they're doing.
Though, again, one must understand the culture before dismissing a political figure as a screwball, because there are still a lot of people in this country who fall in line with Trump's view of reality. Trump may be pigheaded and woefully ignorant, but he is probably not crazy.
If the majority of people believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth, it is not insane to believe that.
Then again, even if everyone on the planet firmly believed in a geocentric universe, the stars would not re-align accordingly.
The President of the United States and the leaders of Congress have a particular responsibility to know what's going on, even if they intend to spin and lie about it.
The chickenhawks who are trying to stir up confrontation with Iran must surely know that (A) Iranians are not all hard-headed mullahs; there is and has for decades been real conflict between hardliners and modernists in that country, and (B) the treaty to keep them from developing nuclear weapons is not "our" treaty with Iran but was negotiated and signed by a consortium of nations, most of whom seem to think it's working out.
When these saber-rattlers say otherwise, they are either lying or they are ignorant to a level that should disqualify them from office.
The information is out there, for anyone who wants to influence public opinion with actual facts rather than easy stereotypes and partisan rumors.
But I don't know what Trump actually knows or doesn't know about North Korea or Syria or Turkey or Iran or anything at all.
I do expect that most people who spent four years at military school would reflexively snap to at the sound of the national anthem, and that any who don't should probably not try to equate those years as an equivalent of actual military experience.
Mike Luckovich has Melania accuse him of being heartless, and the gag seems too close to the bull's eye for comfort.
A small, odd moment, yes, but her having to nudge him is bad enough: I'm not surprised that an immigrant would have a particularly high level of patriotism, having chosen this country rather than having been born here, but she's not the one boasting of making America great again.
In fact, the more I see of Melania, the more I like her, even if she does put up with a husband who leaves her standing on the curb and walks up the steps without her.
And, whatever challenges little Baron faces in life -- and whatever it's costing taxpayers, yes -- I have a suspicion as to which parent declared that the poor kid was not going to be yanked out of a school that was working for him simply to cater to his father's grandiose ambitions.
And which parent, when the kid wasn't doing well in school, would have simply shipped him off to a military academy.
As the twig is bent.
Howsoever, I'm not running the Trump family, much less the Trump administration.
What I do is to comment on cartoons and so let me suggest this to political cartoonists:
Either do your homework, or confine your commentary to saggy jeans and people who endlessly stare at their cellphones.
If you're going to help talk us into a war, with North Korea or Iran or the Russians, do it because you want to see that happen, not because you're too lazy to find out what's going on.
You're paid to be a journalist, so be a journalist: If your mother says she loves you, check it out.
And whenever a politician, even one you admire, makes a statement, get a second, reliable source before you break out your pens.
If you keep telling people that the Sun goes around the Earth, it will not change the fact that the Earth goes around the Sun.
But you might help persuade us to bring the Sun down to the Earth.
If so, I hope it's what you truly wanted.
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