Anti-Kennedy comic censored by Chi Trib

[hoosier]

Getting Prickly
The Chicago Tribune declined to publish Monday's Prickly City comic strip, which made a joke at Ted Kennedy's expense, Editor & Publisher reports. In the strip, one character says, "Did you hear what Ted Kennedy said during the Condoleezza Rice confirmation? 'They lied and people died.'_" The reply: "Wow! Ted Kennedy said that? Was he driving?"

The Trib says it pulled the strip not out of sympathy to Massachusetts' senior senator but because Kennedy didn't actually utter the quote. Cartoonist Scott Stantis says his syndicate fouled up:

Stantis said he knew "They lied and people died" wasn't a direct quote from Kennedy. The cartoonist condensed and paraphrased what Kennedy had said into those five words, and didn't put them in quote marks before sending the strip to Universal. The syndicate, according to Stantis, inserted the quote marks.

"Of course, they have an absolute right to edit their newspaper," Stantis said of the Tribune.

Mary Jo Kopechne could not be reached for comment.

- Opinion Journal