Texas Sen. [crscore]Ted Cruz[/crscore] slammed The Washington Post on Tuesday after the paper depicted his two young daughters as monkeys in an editorial cartoon.
In an article accompanying her drawing, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Ann Telnaes wrote that while it is an “unspoken rule in editorial cartooning that a politician’s children are off-limits,” she felt that Cruz’s daughters, 7-year-old Caroline and 4-year-old Catherine, were “fair game” because the Republican presidential candidate used them in a Christmas parody video.
[Update: Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt removed the offending cartoon Tuesday evening. Telnaes also deleted a tweet with the article and cartoon in it.]
Ted Cruz uses his kids as political props https://t.co/gKT8Jhjm17 pic.twitter.com/GNfoP4batF
— Ann Telnaes (@AnnTelnaes) December 22, 2015
Washington Post has retracted Cruz cartoon depicting his daughters as monkeys. https://t.co/JiZtLeHsxz pic.twitter.com/KSJY2THwjj
— Chuck Ross (@ChuckRossDC) December 23, 2015
Cruz responded, urging Telnaes to attack him rather than his kids.
Classy. @washingtonpost makes fun of my girls. Stick w/ attacking me–Caroline & Catherine are out of your league. https://t.co/N61ys6z8w1
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) December 22, 2015
Telnaes’ cartoon was widely panned on social media Tuesday evening, prompting editorial page editor Fred Hiatt to yank the drawing.
“It’s generally been the policy of our editorial section to leave children out of it,” Hiatt wrote in a note. “I failed to look at this cartoon before it was published. I understand why Ann thought an exception to the policy was warranted in this case, but I do not agree.”
This post has been updated with Hiatt’s statement.