ABSTRACT
Herblock, the political cartoonist, made his own climate argument in the Washington Post by showing a shooter standing behind a suit-and-tie abortion protestor. The protestor, carrying an "Abortions are murders" sign, says "What me, an accomplice?" The first thing to note is that the "climate" argument is a familiar political device. Newt Gingrich's anti-Washington rhetoric was blamed for the Oklahoma City bombing. Columnist Carl Rowan once wrote that "a lot of the blood of race war victims" will be on the hands of Rush Limbaugh and Howard Stern. During the 1960s, the most crazed and violent anti-war radicals were depicted as representing all anti-war sentiment, just as the wildest anti-abortion zealots are depicted as representative of a broad mainstream movement that opposes all killing. The political advantage of using "climate" arguments is that one can discredit principled opposition without bothering to engage it.
