Elections

Ted Cruz GOES OFF On Washington Post After Cartoonist Depicts His Kids As Monkeys

Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
Font Size:

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.]

Cruz responded, urging Telnaes to attack him rather than his kids.

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. 

Follow Chuck on Twitter