Joint Chiefs Fire At Toles Cartoon
In a protest with an unusual number of high-level signatures, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and each of its five members have fired off a letter assailing a Washington Post cartoon as “beyond tasteless.”
The Tom Toles cartoon, published Sunday, depicts a heavily bandaged soldier in a hospital bed as having lost his arms and legs, while Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in the guise of a doctor, says: “I’m listing your condition as ‘battle hardened.’ ” Toles said he meant no offense toward American soldiers.
Dave Autry, deputy communications director for Disabled American Veterans, said he was “certainly not” offended by the cartoon.
“It was graphic, no doubt about it,” he said. “But it drove home a point, that there are critically ill patients that certainly need to be attended to.”
Toles, who won a 1990 Pulitzer Prize for the Buffalo News and joined The Post in 2002, said he expected criticism for drawing the quadruple amputee, as he does for about two-thirds of his efforts.
Joint Chiefs Fire At Toles Cartoon On Strained Army
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