Singapore Weighs In

Not exactly a nation known for its subtlety, the Singaporean press gave us this well-labeled political cartoon yesterday, with so much blunt symbolism that, at first, I mistook it for a French New Wave film. It strikes me as one of those newspaper cartoons from the days of the Hayes administration, when Americans were a humorless people yet to evolve to drawing satire, and just as inscrutable. Why is Bush holding that "Anti-Terror Ally" square? I know America and Pakistan are allies in the War on Terror, or at least we are on paper, but... And is Musharraf hugging that Dictatorship tiger or trying to control it? What's with the sandal? The footprint of tyranny? That doesn't make sense.

(Oh, I get it: it's a flip-flop. It would just be easier on my brain to move on to a cartoon reinforcing the idea that Fred Thompson is too scripted.)