Henry Payne for January 20, 2016

This cartoon says more about the cartoonist than it says about the subject of the cartoon.Henry Payne is a cartoonist for the Detroit News. The biggest news in Michigan right now is the Flint water crisis. Since September 2015, Payne has not done one – exactly ZERO – cartoons about the Flint water crisis.

He has done several cartoons about how President Obama’s policies have killed the coal industry, an industry that is non-existent in Michigan; the last major Michigan coal mine closed in 1952. Maybe, his heart is still in his hometown of Charleston, W.Va.

If Payne is really concerned about what is killing the coal industry, it could be fall in demand. The price of Central Appalachian coal has fallen from $90 for a short ton in 2008 to $43 in December 2015. Apparently, the rules of supply and demand don’t apply for conservative when it comes to industries with which they have an emotional bond.

As for this cartoon, people forget the funds that were released were Iranian property. The funds were frozen by President Reagan after bombing of the US Embassy on April 1983.Sixty-three people were killed, including 17 Americans. Among the dead were CIA’s top Middle East analyst, Robert Ames, CIA Station Chief, Kenneth Haas and several CIA staff members.

Six months later, the Marine barracks were destroyed in the same manner that Embassy was, killing 241 servicemen. Again, Iran was believed responsible.

The Embassy was moved to a more secure area in East Beirut. In September 1984, 15 months and 2 days after the first Embassy bombing, the temporary Embassy in Beirut was attacked, killing 2 US soldiers. There were no Benghazi type hearing as to why 3 attacks could occur against US interests in the same manner, in the same city, in a little more than 15 month period.

Even though Iran had been implicated in all the attacks, the Reagan Administration continued to engage in back channel negotiations with the Iranians for release of US hostages in Lebanon. The Administration continued to trade weapons in hope of getting the hostages released.

What Obama did is no different than what many Presidents in the past have done; exchange prisoners. Somehow, to conservatives because Obama did it, it is a great wrong.