I tried staying out of the "is Ted Rall a racist" flame wars that have been going on for at least the last week. I had been a fan of his work since the GWB years, but I will say Mr. Rall did himself no favors by defending himself so antagonistically when he received negative feedback for his posts here. I've followed his cartoons for over a decade, and I've seen plenty which I either did not find funny, or found them distasteful. My impression of his work is that he's critical of everything that everyone in Washington does, and for that reason I can understand why he would not have been included on the comics page of a site which holds Democrats to such high esteem such as Daily Kos. I've disagreed with quite a number of his cartoons, likewise I've found plenty more to be spot on in their observations. But I would also never presume to tell someone who took offense that their offense was misplaced. Therefore, if someone cannot get past the message Ted Rall is trying to convey in his cartoons because they are offended at the depictions of the characters, it is not my place to tell them they should get over it, or that their feelings are not valid. That is not the purpose of this diary...
Where I find the most problems with the resulting pie fight/flame war/whatever is that it seems like the outrage mostly comes from the fact that Obama is portrayed in a less than flattering light, regardless of the imagery. If the majority is going to decide his cartoons are racist, then of course the majority is going to get their way in having him actually banned and not just warned. But it does make me wonder how much outrage would be shown if the Obama cartoons were positive rather than critical. Certainly, I think the tone of Mr. Rall's critics might be different, if not their content.
That being said, my impression of the comments of the few cartoons I was able to view here before they were taken down, is that Ted Rall came here specifically to troll the site and hid behind some valid (IMHO) criticisms of Obama's policies in order to rile up some controversy. He had already established that he was not asked to join the comic pages here, for which I think he showed his "appreciation" by posting comics he knew would piss people off. It is also obvious that there are many here who have never seen his work before he came to this site, so I will link to one of my all-time favorite editorial cartoons which happens to be drawn by Ted Rall, and point out that this was published in 2001 and is a message which I think everyone who frequents this site can agree on: