He attacked Ebonics big-time, and was the darling of the Right for 10 minutes because of it.

The Danziger cartoon was offensive, in my opinion. The reference to the dim and hysterical character of Prissy in Gone With The Wind was too much.

Oliphant has been depicting Rice as an attack parrot for some time, with no particular reference to race, so I don't see the problem. She's shown as a yes-man; that's not dependent on race or gender. He has exaggerated her facial characteristics, but he does that to everyone. Look at her photograph: her lips are full. Bush's ears are big, too, and bigger in Oliphant's drawings. This is equal treatment under the laws of cartooning.

Trudeau's cartoon says more about Trudeau's opinion of Bush than about Rice. He has Rice stand up to Bush, and Bush reply by putting her in her place with a derisive nickname, as he has done with many people. (He calls Maureen Dowd "the Cobra". Shall we imply sexism for that?) I found it very amusing that the Independent Women's Forum should quote the lyrics of a Rolling Stones song ("Brown Sugar") in support of their opinion that Trudeau was using the nickname against Rice. What I took away from that cartoon was that anyone -- anyone -- who disagrees with Bush runs the risk of being put in their place by the use of a derisive nickname, a behavior that Bush had by then already displayed.

Last, I find it hilarious that a group so closely tied to the current crop of Republicans (Wendy Gramm? Lynne Cheney?) should try to make a case for lack of liberal support for black women based on their non-response to cartoons that insult a particular black woman. It sounds an awful lot like the Clarence Thomas flap. "They oppose him? It must be because he's black and rightwing!" No, folks. It's just because he's rightwing.

And the same with Dr. Rice. She is not an iconic representative of all black women in America; she's a partisan political figure. If she's going to parrot the official line, she's not going to get the respect just because she's a black woman. That kind of respect is patronizingly racist and sexist.