WHAT’S REALLY INTERESTING about this Kerry cartoon from the Charlotte Observer is that it assumes the reader’s knowledge of a story that’s gotten, even today, very little coverage from the traditional media (including, based on a site search, the Observer itself). I think this says something significant about how people get news nowadays. (See the update to this post for why I think that’s important.)

UPDATE: Roger Simon has further thoughts.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Frederick Turner:

The “mainstream press” may be in the process of squandering a precious resource that its leaders no longer have the institutional memory to recognize as the source of its legitimacy and its living. In the last few years — essentially since 9/11 plunged us into a new world, a new agenda, that the press did not understand — the major organs of civilized journalism, once trusted by the billion most effective people on the planet, have given away their credibility upon a trifle.

Indeed. Read the whole thing.