Arizona Republic prints most shameful cartoon of the year

The Arizona Republic recently printed a political cartoon that easily claims the distinction of most shameful of the year.

Steven Benson’s cartoon depicts Kyrsten Sinema shooting Martha McSally out of the sky with a bazooka that sports the American and Arizonan flags. Sinema’s artillery is labelled “substance” while the trail of smoke from McSally’s fighter jetsays “shallow attacks.”

Praise goes to local consultant Constantin Querard’s succinct analysis on Twitter

“Oh look, the AZ Republic is covering 4 Sinema by drawing her as a patriot while she literally blows Martha McSally out of the sky. Hmm, partisan (check!), inaccurate (check!), covers 4 the lib Dem (check!), violence against Republicans (check!)... Get that clown another Pulitzer!”

Oh look, the AZRepublic is covering 4 Sinema by drawing her as a patriot while she literally blows Martha McSally out of the sky. Hmm, partisan (check!), inaccurate (check!), covers 4 the lib Dem (check!), violence against Republicans (check!)... Get that clown another Pulitzer!

The McSally campaign called the cartoon “despicable” in a statement.

“Getting shot down isn’t a political punchline, it’s a reality our service members face every day.”

Where to begin with this one?

Martha McSally is the first female pilot to fly in combat for the U.S. Air Force, while Kyrsten Sinema was a war protestor who made a fool out of herself in public. In an era of worsening political discourse and increasing amounts of threats and violence, the Arizona Republic opted to display Sinema blasting McSally out of the sky with a deadly weapon. A chorus of people immediately condemned it as appalling.

The Republic seems to find imagery of Sinema striking McSally with a rocket launcher as not only appropriate, but patriotic. This is the type of warped, biased logic the media spews when it comes to conservatives. The cartoon also contends that Sinemasends McSally dovetailing because of the “substance” of her arguments. This would be hilarious if the whole image wasn’t so disgusting.

Perhaps nothing in the cartoon insults the audience’s intelligence more than the presence of the flags. Yes, Sinema is the one represented by the Arizonan flag despite her calling Arizona the “meth lab of democracy” and a place full of “crazy” people. She even felt obliged to repeatedly speak in front of out-of-state liberal groups and advise them to “stop your state from becoming like Arizona.”

And yes, Sinema is the one represented by the American flag despite her profession of indifference toward those Americans who enlist in the Taliban, not the candidate who achieved historic military firsts and was willing to die for the United States.

Sinema thinks she can coast to victory by regurgitating talking points, avoiding engagement with her opponent, and not answering for her troubling pattern of demeaning Arizona and its people. It would be a good strategy if it weren’t as transparently disingenuous as the Arizona Republic’s cartoon.