Editor, Manteca Bulletin,

I am a fan of political cartoons, when they are amusing and covey some semblance of truth. The cartoon that appeared in Saturdays paper (June 7) was neither.

The cartoon in question depicts a scene from the D-Day beach landing and shows several U.S. soldiers storming the beachhead, with a ghost like image of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl trying to climb back on the landing craft with the balloon caption “I wanna go home!”. Bergdahl is depicted, not in military dress but wearing an Islamic robe. I guess what the cartoonist is trying to say here is that Bergdahl is not really an American soldier and is also a coward.

As a veteran I find it offensive that any American soldier would be tried and branded as a coward without the chance of even a hearing or trial purely on the speculation of a few on the Right who just three weeks ago were blaming President Obama for not doing something to get Bergdahl back.

John McCain calls these five “The Dream Team” of the Taliban. Really? Three of the five were political officials during the Taliban rule and were actually considered “Moderates”. One was a student who was arrested when he tried to help a relative give aid to the U.S., another was a midlevel police official. One was apparently a former Chief of Staff, but he has been at GITMO for 12 years, he probably thinks MySpace is the hot new thing. McCain once said, when he was all for getting Bergdahl out, “Men get funny ideas when they are held in captivity for as long as Sgt. Bergdahl, I should know, I was once in his shoes”. Can’t argue with that, considering it was McCain who picked Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate. Funniest idea ever, I’d say... Now there’s a good idea for a political cartoon.



Larry Baca

Manteca