The Washington Post is embracing the controversy over Ann Telnaes’s cartoon depicting Ted Cruz’s daughters as monkeys, posting several navel-gazing–but far from contrite–articles to ride the wave of outrage clicks.
Callum Borchers, a blogger for The Fix, insinuates that, if anything, Cruz should thank the Post for helping his campaign:
Media-bashing Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz was handed a political gift Tuesday night when The Washington Post retracted an editorial cartoon that depicted his two young daughters as monkeys.
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Whether you agree with Telnaes’s original reasoning or Hiatt’s overriding rationale, one thing should be obvious to any political observer: This is a win for a candidate who is rising in the polls thanks to support from more conservative Republicans and who has been highly critical of the press — most memorably during the third Republican presidential debate, when he blasted the moderators’ questions as being illustrative of “why the American people don’t trust the media.”
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Another WaPo blog, Comic Riffs, retold the story (framing the pushback against Telnaes as a loss for free speech) and asked readers: “Would you have published it?”
IN APRIL, when Post political cartoonist Ann Telnaes was speaking at the Library of Congress, she told a packed room that she objected to red lines being imposed on her work. As a satirist, she said, “I don’t want the tools limited to me.” To surrender your weapons of artistic engagement, she underscored, was “a slippery slope.”
On Tuesday, a red line was drawn for her.
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So what’s your view: Would you publish such a cartoon on your editorial pages?
Comic Riffs welcomes your comments below.
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