For the second straight day, the Tribune didn't run the Boondocks cartoon, instead making the lame-o claim, that “Today's original Boondocks strip presents inaccurate information as fact.”
Don't get exactly how the editors parsed this exactly. A taped conversation is just that, as far as facts go. And there's the little word, Maybe in the first strip, which gives one some leeway. Oh well, from uComics: the cartoons in question. Judge for yourself.
Editor & Publisher quotes the Tribune (but not Aaron McGruder)
NEW YORK The Chicago Tribune dropped today's “Boondocks,” as the strip once again mentioned President Bush's alleged former drug use. The paper had also dropped yesterday's installment.Why did the Tribune pull Aaron McGruder's Monday and Tuesday comics? “Even in cartoons, you cannot state as a real-life fact something that is not true in real life,” Geoff Brown, the Tribune's associate managing editor/features, told E&P. “This is not to say that cartoonists can't dream up conversations or situations to poke fun at a public figure -- that's satire. But when they inaccurately attribute to a public figure a real-life fact, quote, or action that never happened, then lampoon him or her for a fictional fact, quote, or action, that's unfair. Reports from reputable news sources about the president's taped conversation are careful not to state outright that he admitted drug use.”
Ummm, but what about the actual recording? Did Geoff Brown really tell Dave Astor (of E&P) with a straight face that it would be inaccurate to describe Bush's conversation as actually admitting to using the devil weed, and more? Good poker player probably. Perhaps Brown is angling for a job when Scott McClellan's head explodes sometime next month.
Pretty lame reasoning.
