By: E&P Staff An editorial cartoon by recent Pulitzer winner Mike Lukovich at the Atlanta Journal Constitution has drawn hundreds of protest e-mails since it appeared Thursday.
Public Editor Angela Tuck, in a column Saturday, took issue with its timing, and claimed the "symbolism clearly overshadowed the intent." The cartoon showed a hooded figure holding an American flag while reading a book on torture etiquette to an al-Qaida member.
Not by design, it appeared just above photos of two Americans killed by insurgents in Iraq this week, whose bodies were brutalized, probably after they died.
Tuck wrote: "Luckovich had that brutality in mind when he drew the cartoon, which was meant to criticize U.S. military leaders for allowing torture tactics, such as waterboarding (making prisoners feel as though they are being drowned) at Guantanamo Bay....' I believe our most powerful weapon is our moral authority," he said. 'Our level of conduct has to be beyond reproach.'"
As of late Friday afternoon, nearly 18,000 readers had voted in an online poll, with 90% saying they disapproved of it. The online polls on Luckovich's cartoons usually generate about 1,000 votes, Tuck revealed.
Tuck related that Luckovich now believe that, in hindsight, "allowing some distance between the murders of Tucker and Menchaca and the cartoon's publication would have been better."
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