Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Talkback Live

Should Boston Cardinal Step Down During Pedophile Scandal?; When is Satire Appropriate?

Aired February 11, 2002 - 15:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
GARY TUCHMAN, HOST: Test your tolerance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARDINAL BERNARD LAW, BOSTON ARCHBISHOP: I am committed to do all in my power to implement a policy of zero tolerance for the sexual abuse of children by priests or by any agent of the archdiocese.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TUCHMAN: How tolerant can Boston Catholics be of their cardinal, as a pedophile scandal tests the faithful?

Also, cartoonist Mike Marland says he didn't expect this cartoon to back fire. Would you?

(APPLAUSE)

Hello and welcome to TALKBACK LIVE: "America Speaks Out." I'm Gary Tuchman. And today, we'll start with pedophile priests and the deepening scandal plaguing Boston's Catholic community. Last month, defrocked priest John Geoghan was convicted of indecent assault and battery on a 10-year-old boy. He also faces dozens of civil suits stemming from alleged abuse over decades.

Since then, the names of scores of other priests accused of pedaphilia have been turned over to Boston prosecutors. And Cardinal Bernard Law, head of the archdiocese, is under pressure to step down. Joining us now in Boston is my colleague, CNN correspondent Bill Delaney. Bill, it's a very sad story.

BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is indeed a very sad story but a story that just won't go away, Gary. That's the most amazing thing about it. It keeps coming at this archdiocese of 2 million Catholics in this very Catholic city, allegations that, as someone raised Catholic myself, would have been unbearable and impossible a generation ago. Now, Catholics facing weekly, this sort of thing that would be the stuff almost of nightmares for religiously inclined people of the Catholic faith. And it just keeps coming at them here.

TUCHMAN: Bill, how much pressure is the cardinal under right now to step down? DELANEY: Well, a WBZ/"Boston Globe" poll just last Friday, Gary, 48 percent of Catholics in this archdiocese think he should resign. Well, of course, that means that 52 percent or so don't think he should resign. So it is pretty much split down the middle. The talk shows are alive all day and on Boston talk radio and regional talk radio throughout New England about this issue. If you listen in, people are calling in constantly saying the man should step down.

But, you know, there are still a lot of Catholics out there who follow what the institution presents to them and still manage, they say, to separate their deep faith from human problems and a human institution like the Catholic church. He is under pressure, but at the same time, at mass yesterday, Gary, in the cathedral in south Boston here, he made it clear again that he has no intention of resigning, that he thinks he can do the most good by staying as archbishop of Boston, as he has been since 1984.

TUCHMAN: Bill, I know you talk with a lot of Catholics in Boston as part of your job, and you said those poll results. Does it seem that those poll results are accurate based on the people you talked to? Because I could tell you, in our audience here -- and we'll get to that in a minute -- in our audience, we have a number of Catholic people and most of them seem to believe that he should step down.

DELANEY: You know, that's a perceptive question, Gary, because I must say, and it is anecdotal, if you will, the great majority of Catholics I have spoken to believe he should step down. That's been my experience. As I said, if you listen to talk radio, the vast majority of people that are calling in to talk radio, if that's a gauge of the vox populi, if you will, are calling for him to step down.

Prominent Catholic talk show hosts here in Boston calling for him to step down, Catholic -- long time Catholic columnists calling for him to step down. It's in the newspapers. It's on the airwaves, and, as you suggest, it's very much in the street. But that's what the poll said, said that only 48 percent felt he should resign at this point.

TUCHMAN: Bill Delaney, thank you very much for joining us. We know you have to run, get back to work, but we appreciate your time today.

With us now is David Clohessy. He is the national director of SNAP, the Survivor's Network of those Abused by Priests. And on the phone, we have Peter Blute. He is a Boston Catholic, and he is a radio talk show host with WRKO Radio, a fine station in the Boston area.

Before we begin, I want to mention that we did contact the archdiocese of Boston, but the archdiocese declined our invitation to participate in this discussion. David, first of all, tell me more about your organization and how did you get involved in it?

DAVID CLOHESSY, WWW.SURVIVORSNETWORK.ORG: Well, SNAP is a 12- year-old nationwide support group for men and women who have been abused by clergy, Catholic and otherwise. Basically, the whole purpose of our group is to help people who have been victimized, recover and heal from their experience.

I got involved because I was molested over a period of three or four years back in the late '60s, early '70s by a Catholic priest in my home town. And one of the ways, frankly, that I have begun to recover from that is by talking with and listening to other people who have been through the same kinds of experiences. It has been very, very helpful and very healing for me.

TUCHMAN: David, we have a question at the bottom of the screen right there. I'm going to ask it directly to you. Should Cardinal Law resign?

CLOHESSY: I think he should, frankly. I agree with him when he says that he doesn't think that's necessarily part of the solution. That may sound odd, but I don't necessarily think that his resignation will change anything about the way the church handles this. However, I do think that if his resignation would help just one of those literally hundreds of kids who were hurt under his watch, if it will help just one of those kids recover, then I think that's what he should do.

TUCHMAN: Let's introduce Peter Blute now. Peter, I want to ask you the same question. I mean, you are in touch with the community on the radio. What are the people who call you up saying about this and what do you think about it?

PETER BLUTE, WRKO RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: There is a lot of anger out there. There is no doubt about it. People think that this is indefensible, not only the actions of these pedophile priests but also the institutional coverup that apparently has existed for more than 30 years, causing literally hundreds, if not thousands, of young boys to have their lives ruined, by this experience in this youth. So I think there is a lot of anger out there both by Catholics and non-Catholics.

TUCHMAN: OK. The cardinal has released a statement that we have on videotape. We want to give you a listen to what he had to say about all this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAW: The judgments which I made, are made in good faith, were tragically wrong. Because of this, some have called for my resignation. I do not believe that submitting my resignation to the Holy Father is the answer to the terrible scourge of sexual abuse of children by priests. Rather, I intend to implement a comprehensive and aggressive child protection program in order to better uncover and prevent the sexual abuse of children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TUCHMAN: David Clohessy, how many priests are we talking about in the Boston archdiocese?

CLOHESSY: Well, according the "Boston Globe", which has done an outstanding job of investigative reporting, they say that at least 70 or 80 priests have been removed in the last decade for sexual abuse of children. Now that is an estimate that they have come upon looking at court records and other documents. That would represent about 10 percent or just over 10 percent of the Boston diocese and priests. It's a huge scandal. There is no question about it.

TUCHMAN: David, I think what frightens a lot people, and because you are the head of this organization, you would be right on top of this, is that this isn't just the Boston archdiocese, is it? It's not just Boston priests who have done things like this.

CLOHESSY: No, it is not. In fact, it's not the only diocese that has lost that high a percentage of priests. Back in the early '90s, right across the river from me in southern Illinois, the diocese of Belleville, lost 14 priests in a period of about three years for abuse allegations.

My contention is as sad and depressing as this may sound, my contention is that there are no more pedophile priests or no fewer in virtually any Catholic diocese in America. What makes Boston unique is a combination of good aggressive reporting plus some civil authorities, notably a judge, who turned over 10,000 pages of church documents to the public eye. And those are the two factors that have made the coverup in Boston basically hit the media the way it has. But frankly, Boston's pedophilia problem is no different than any other diocese. And the Boston Catholic heirarchy's handling of it is no different that any other Catholic diocese.

TUCHMAN: Peter Blute, I've interviewed Cardinal Law in recent years. He is a very friendly, very comforting man, a nice man to get to know. You feel bad that a situation like this is happening not only because it is so horrible what's happened to these young people, but because it shatters possibly an illusion you had of this cardinal. You know the cardinal. I'm wondering if you feel the same way.

BLUTE: Yes, I think that's right. If you look at his long career, and the "Boston Harold" did a piece on his career, he has really done some great things. He was very active in the civil rights movement in the 1960s. He has been a beacon of racial tolerance, religious tolerance here in the Boston area, done a lot of great things like that. But people just can't get past that he knew that a child had been raped and he didn't take action legally or otherwise, but simply moved the priest to somewhere else to do the same thing. And I think that is sticking in people's craw.

TUCHMAN: David and Peter, it is time for a break right now. We'll continue with this next.

And then later, find out why a political cartoonist has second thoughts about what he drew last week.

(APPLAUSE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(APPLAUSE) TUCHMAN: We welcome you back. We are talking about sexual abuse against children in the Catholic church. There's nothing more sickening than talking about sexual abuse and children and that's why this topic is so important.

We want to read you a statement that has come from the archdiocese of Boston. It says, quote: "The ongoing review of our records continues. And any clergy member found to have a substantial allegation of sexual abuse of a minor will be immediately removed and suspended from all assignments in the archdiocese pending a full investigation. Our priority is the protection of the children."

David Clohessy, do you believe that?

CLOHESSY: I wish I could. I wish I could. But let's face it, Cardinal Law has been in the head of the diocese for almost 20 years. At any one point during that time, he could have picked up the phone, not just about John Geoghan, but about any of those 70 or 80 priests and he could have called law enforcement and said, I think we have got a child molester here. At any one point, he could have done that and he never did, not once.

And now, serving across the country are five bishops in large Catholic diocese who have also been implicated in this scandal, five bishops who learned from Cardinal Law how to cover up this sort of thing. I wish I could believe him, but frankly, what we have to do is we have to look at actions and not words. And the long standing pattern, not just in Boston, but in other diocese, has been protection of the church first and foremost. And that continues to this day, I'm sorry to say.

TUCHMAN: I usually don't like to do things like this, but it is relevant it to the discussion. How many people in our audience here are Catholic? Round of applause.

(APPLAUSE)

Now if I could ask a round of applause how many of you think the archbishop, the cardinal, should resign?

(APPLAUSE)

Now these are only Catholics I'm asking this question to. If you're not Catholic, no clapping. We'll let you clap later though. How many of you who are Catholic think he should not resign and should stick it out?

OK, we don't have as many claps there. But I want it ask this young lady, Kelly, who is from Illinois. Why do you think he should stay and not resign?

KELLY: I would just say he should stay and not resign because it is an institutional problem and it is obvious it is not specific to Cardinal Law or the Boston diocese. And the problems is years of tacit approval of the Catholic church for something like this.

TUCHMAN: Does it bother you though, as a Catholic, that he knew about this allegedly and hasn't said anything about it?

KELLY: I think everybody has known about it in the Catholic church, not to say everybody, but a lot of the leadership, a lot of the parishioners and it has been a widely known thing. So I don't -- it doesn't bother me at all because I think at some level, everybody knew, and everyone who wasn't out there investigating it. After "20/20", "Nightline" and everybody else have done all these stories on pedophiles and the Catholic church, they haven't been out there doing anything either.

TUCHMAN: Now, who do we have who is Catholic here who strongly believes he needs to resign?

This gentleman right here. Dan is from North Carolina. Tell me why, Dan.

DAN: Because he knew about it. He should have said something a long time ago and just holding it back, it just doesn't seem right. It doesn't seem right for him to be in the position right now.

TUCHMAN: All right. Thanks for telling us that. We appreciate it.

We want to say goodbye to Peter Blute with WRKO Radio. We thank you, Peter, very much for joining us today and talking with us about this topic. We also want to ask David Clohessy one more question in the wider picture regarding the Vatican. The Vatican, and I'm sure you're familiar with this, recently made a decision about what dioceses should do about these cases. Can you tell us more about that?

CLOHESSY: Well, the operative word unfortunately here is secrecy. The Vatican said that they want to hear about these cases and they want to try these priests in secret tribunals. But that begs the important question, which is why not treat priests who molest just like anyone else who molests? That's what clearly needs to be done.

We need call in criminal authorities, dial 911, call the department of social service. Priests don't deserve any special treatment, frankly, if they molest kids. And that's what the Vatican document totally side steps and that's a why many of us are troubled by what the Vatican did recently.

TUCHMAN: On the telephone right now, we have Thomas Groome. He's a professor of theology at Boston College and the author of the book "What Makes Us Catholic." Sir, thank you very much for joining us.

THOMAS GROOME, THEOLOGY PROFESSOR, BOSTON COLLEGE: Thank you, Gary. Sorry I couldn't join you on the air.

TUCHMAN: Well, you're on the air right now. I better let you know that.

(CROSSTALK)

Tell me what you think about this situation. Should Cardinal Law step down?

GROOME: Well, it's tragic. Gary, the point is that he has decided not to step down and rather than second-guessing that, and saying what he should or could or ought to do, I think it is more realistic to ask the question, how do we move on from here.

As a Catholic Christian community of Boston, we are desperately in need of picking ourselves up off the floor. Our hearts are broken. We are scandalized. Our fate has been stretched to the nth degree. I think the hopeful thing to do, and St. Paul said that hope is most a virtue when it is most needed.

I think to be hopers at this time is the call of our faith and to say, how do we move on from here. The cardinal is going to stay in office. He is going to hopefully have the moral authority to lead us through this morass and back to a more appropriate place and how can we support that? How can we make suggestions to him about what is needed now?

For example, I believe there should be a lot more lay- participation in the oversight of the Arch Diocese. In other words, there should be lay representation on all of the major committees including the priest personnel committee; the trusties and the bishop's committee of the seminaries and so on.

I think we need more active lay participation. This is a time, there have been other times in the history of the church when in a sense, our leadership did fail us. And when the lay people came through, claiming their church in the sense save the day. I think it is a similar moment at Arch Diocese of Boston at this time.

TUCHMAN: Sounds like you are from Ireland, Thomas Groom, by the way. How many years have you been out of Ireland?

GROOME: Well, a while, Gary, but I still carry the brogue honestly.

TUCHMAN: What county are you from?

GROOME: The county Kildare (ph).

TUCHMAN: OK, a beautiful place.

GROOME: About 25 years ago.

TUCHMAN: David Clohessy, what did you want to say? I hear you wanted to say something.

CLOHESSY: I want to say, in a sense I agree with the professor. It's time for laity to take some action. Regardless of what the church hierarchy does, every Catholic parent can have a conversation with his or her child and explain about safe touch, explain the private parts of your body, and tell a child here is what you do if someone touches you there.

So, irrespective of what the bishops and the archbishops and the cardinals do or don't do, I think it is incumbent upon every Catholic to at least do that, and to do what every other citizen is taught to do in every other case of suspected crime, and that is turn to the civil authorities if you have a suspicion that something is going wrong.

If we learned absolutely nothing from the example of Jesus, it is that we are judged by how we treat the most vulnerable. If we are worried about besmirching father's good name, we have to balance that with the well-being of an innocent child. And Catholics need to do what every citizen does, and that is what every citizen does, pick up the phone and call the police if they suspect something is going on.

TUCHMAN: I want to ask you both this question: First you, David; should a church be immediately required, should a bishop, an archbishop be immediately required to notify authorities if there is an allegation like this?

CLOHESSY: I bet can you can predict any answer. It certainly is yes. Even the most well-intentioned, well-meaning Catholic bishop is not trained as a social worker, investigator, police official, judge and jury. A bishop can't perform those roles, even if they mean well. They have to turn this matter over to trained civil professionals who can investigate child sexual abuse. The sad, sad litany we have seen in Boston is largely due to an arrogance on the part of church leaders who say we can and should handle this in-house.

TUCHMAN: Thomas Groome, I apologize. We are out of time for this section of our show. Let me apologize about that, but David Clohessy and Thomas Groome, thank you very much for joining us.

We will take a break right now and then we will find out what happened when a newspaper editor decided the country's wounds from September 11 had healed.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TUCHMAN: Welcome back, everybody. A political cartoon lampooning President Bush's budget certainly got folks riled over the weekend. I want you to look at this. This is cartoonist Mike Marland's take on the president's budget and Social Security. It ran in the Concord Monitor in New Hampshire. Readers were outraged. The White House called it tasteless and just plain wrong.

Editor Mike Pride (ph) apologized for running it in his newspaper, and eventually even Marland admitted he probably should have used a different image.

Joining us here in Atlanta is Mike Luckovich (ph). He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist at the "Atlanta Journal- Constitution." You see his stuff all over the place. "Newsweek" magazine almost every week has one of his cartoons at the very beginning of it. On the phone we have Norman Solomon. He is a nationally syndicated columnist on media and politics. His latest book is titled "Habits of Highly Deceptive Media."

Gentlemen, thank you for joining us. NORMAN SOLOMON, MEDIA CRITIC: My pleasure.

MIKE LUCKOVICH, POLITICAL CARTOONIST: Thank you.

TUCHMAN: Mike, first question I want to ask you: most important question first: You have done pretty wild stuff in some of your cartoons...

LUCKOVICH: Occasionally.

TUCHMAN: ... occasionally -- I want to know how you feel about this. Did the freedom of speech give him the right to do this?

LUCKOVICH: I guess freedom of speech gave him the right to do it, however, it was probably just not the right image to use, because emotions are so raw from September 11 that that kind of overwhelmed the message that he was trying to get across.

I know as a cartoonist you will occasionally be working on a cartoon and you will think it's this great cartoon and then you show it to an editor and the editor says don't do that, that's insane. So, I think the editor may have slipped up a little bit by letting it run. Editors are a good thing occasionally because we cartoonists sometimes get nutty and I think this was the case.

TUCHMAN: Have you had any ideas such as this to use World Trade Center inferences in any of the cartoons you've done?

LUCKOVICH: You know, I did use a World Trade Center image, and the thing that was different about mine was I think -- there it is. I have the plane and it's hitting the -- heading toward the holy Quran but I labeled it Islamic terrorists that are in the plane. I didn't get any negative feedback on that, and I think the reason why is I didn't put a politician in the plane, like Bush or something.

I think that was just a little bit over the live. I personally disagree with what Bush has done on Social Security, and I think that he is ripe for criticism, but putting him in a plane heading towards the Trade Center is -- I just don't think is probably the right way to go.

TUCHMAN: Could I ask a tough question: If this was a case, a right wing Christian terrorist, would you have done the same cartoon with him smashing into the New Testament?

LUCKOVICH: But, of course. Right after September 11 I drew a cartoon, I have Colin Powell and he is saying, has that fanatic been located yet? And a Pakistani intelligence guy says, yes, Jerry Falwell is pulling into his driveway. So, that was after he talked about how we deserved September 11 because of gays and things like that in our society.

I'm not afraid to on hit anyone. You just -- you can be hard hitting and controversial but when it comes to really tough -- tough raw images you have to be careful. For instance the image a few years ago at Oklahoma City, the firefighter holding the little girl in her arms -- do you all remember that -- that was such a tough, raw image and there was a cartoon done on that and it was sort -- it sort of used a different subject and it sort of made the image look a little bit trite, and that cartoonist got in a lot of trouble for that one as well.

TUCHMAN: That little girl's name was Bailey Almond (ph) .

LUCKOVICH: That's right.

TUCHMAN: She would have been six years old if she were still alive today.

I want to talk to Norman Solomon, nationally syndicated columnist: your opinion, Norman, on this cartoon. Should it have gone in the paper?

SOLOMON: I personally didn't like the cartoon. It was making a valid point about an irresponsible budget proposal by the Bush Administration, but I think the imagery was in bad taste. I have to say, I have seen columns and cartoons that I personally found offensive, but it doesn't mean the editor should apologize for printing it, so I think it was an editors call and I think it's ultimately a legitimate call either way.

I have to say, what bothers me most about this entire incident is the response from the White House. Ari Fleischer issued a statement accusing the cartoonist, and I'm quoting here, of equating the president's budget with terrorist attacks that took 3,000 lives. We are in danger here of something we could call PC, as in Pictorial Correctness, or maybe CC, Cartoon Correctness.

I mean, cartoonists use metaphors all the time, and images that liken one thing to another. It doesn't mean that they are equating something with something else as Ari Fleischer said. He also, speaking presumable for the president said that that cartoon was a, quote, "an affront to the people of New York" unquote, and this is where it gets ugly because just really hours before that statement from the White House about this cartoon, "The New York Times" published a column by Paul Krugman (ph) in which he accused the White House of engaging in what he called "the stiffing of New York."

And essentially the charge in that very prominent venue in New York was that Bush had promised at least $20 billion in construction aid -- reconstruction aid -- for Manhattan when actually his budget contained $11 billion dollars. So let's get real. What is more of an affront to the people of New York? A cartoon that appears in this small newspaper in New Hampshire, or getting promised at least $ 20 billion in reconstruction aid for New York City and then seeing a White House budget with only $11 billion in it for that purpose.

I would say that the White House coming on so strong in this issue is really trying to divert attention from what is most outrageous about its own conduct toward the city of New York.

TUCHMAN: Norman, that is certainly one opinion. I could tell you though, as someone who has been to ground zero and knows people who died in the World Trade Center complex, it is hard to look at a cartoon like this and see it being used for these purposes.

SOLOMON: I'm sure that's true, but it's even harder to contemplate being shorted $9 billion in reconstruction aid that was promised.

TUCHMAN: Norman, thanks for your viewpoint there.

We want to get a listen to what our audience members have to say about this and also we are going to show you a couple of Mike Luckovich's cartoons -- some of his more controversial cartoons -- but first we will take time out for a newsbreak and we will be right back.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TUCHMAN: We want to tell you about this: The "Concord Monitor" editor Mike Pride wrote an apology which appeared in the Sunday edition of the paper. He said quote, "My decision to run the cartoon assumed that for others, as for myself, enough time had passed for the wounds of September 11 to heal, and for the terrorist attacks to take their place in the long history of political satire. Sometimes artists, including political cartoonists, get there before the rest of us. I thought this might be such a time. In retrospect the decision was wrong."

Joining us on the phone is Steve Benson. He is an editorial cartoonist for the "Arizona Republic" newspaper and he was the cartoonist who did the cartoon that Mike Luckovich talked about a short time ago, Oklahoma City.

I want to welcome you. Thank you for joining us.

STEVE BENSON, CARTOONIST, "ARIZONA REPUBLIC": My pleasure.

TUCHMAN: Tell us again about the cartoon, what it looked like, what it said and what the point was you were trying to make with that one.

BENSON: The cartoon that you referred to, which I did a few years ago, had to do with the sentencing to death of Timothy McVeigh for the horrible bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City.

I'm an outspoken critic and opponent of the death penalty, so the images of firefighters of course been burned into all of our consciousness and I used it as a metaphor to make a statement against the death penalty.

The firefighter was labeled at an opponent -- excuse me, as a supporter of the death penalty -- and then the child in his arms was saying to the firefighter, as he carried the baby out, please, no more killing. And this was seen by a lot of people in Oklahoma including the governor, Frank Keating, as somehow an attack on the firefighters and the paramedics, and they railed against the cartoon and took issue with the point I was making, which was clearly against the death penalty. TUCHMAN: Steve, any second thought about doing the cartoon? I know first hand that a lot families in Oklahoma City, most of whom do favor the death penalty, through our unscientific surveys, to be blunt about it, gut it seems that way -- most of them were very offended by that cartoon, because that was an image that is seared into our memories and it was very -- a fragile image and one that had a lot of emotion and any second thoughts about it?

BENSON: Well, it's always thin ice for cartoonists to tread out on when you are dealing with, in particular, tragedies involving human death and suffering. These moments and opportunities, if you want to you call them that, have to be approached very carefully, and editorial cartoons sometimes don't like to use this word, but "sensitively," because the possibility of deep and abiding misunderstanding of the cartoon is always there, particularly when the metaphor relies on something that is emotionally traumatizing to people.

So if I was to do the cartoon again I would probably try to do it in such a way that was not misinterpreted as an attack on the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, although I certainly would not change my views in opposition to the death penalty. And by the way, that image of the fireman and the baby has been used been used repeatedly by cartoonists to make various political and social points.

So the question is how to use those images, if at all, in a way that will not be misunderstood. Because sometimes the power of the image itself can overwhelm whatever point you are trying to make.

TUCHMAN: So, you would do it a little differently, though, Steve.

BENSON: I probably would, sure. If I could, I would try to relate the death penalty question to that image, if possible, without getting it overwhelmed by the emotional reaction and sometimes that is not possible. I don't know if in this case it could be done successfully.

TUCHMAN: Mike Luckovich, you brought a couple more of your cartoons with us that created some controversy. Can you tell us about them?

LUCKOVICH: Yes, I'm trying to think which ones I brought today.

TUCHMAN: Let's take a look.

LUCKOVICH: Oh, you know, I brought one that I did -- this is on Ashcroft, when Ashcroft decided not to look into the backgrounds of detainees, whether they had purchased guns or not. To me that was just loony. So I did this cartoon -- I'm trying to read it here -- as Qaeda member is saying, "My detention is over. Ashcroft saw this and released me and let me out." And the other guy says, "See guys, always carry around your NRA membership cards."

TUCHMAN: What kind of mail did you get about that one? LUCKOVICH: I found that NRA members do not -- aren't good with cartoons, and they thought that it was personal attack on gun enthusiasts. But I wasn't going after gun lovers. I was going after Ashcroft in the cartoon. But the cartoon -- a column in a gun lover's magazine ran, calling me a disgrace.

So we have been getting e-mails from all over the country talking about what human garbage I am for defaming NRA members, which I didn't in the cartoon but was can you do?

TUCHMAN: Human garbage. Tough line of work you're in.

LUCKOVICH: Well, it -- that's one of the nicer compliments I got, so...

TUCHMAN: You brought another one here also...

LUCKOVICH: OK, now, let's see which one that is because I have forgotten now -- oh, yes, now, here is where an editor comes in. My editor, her name is Cynthia Tucker (ph), and I show all my roughs to her, and this cartoon ray recently, and she was a little bit -- she wasn't sure if I should do this or not.

I've got a guy going through airport security and he is saying, now I'm convinced airport security is finally up to speed. And you see there is a metal detector, a bomb sniffing dog, and in the background a proctologist...

TUCHMAN: Oh, I get it.

LUCKOVICH: She has problems when I draw people with their pants down or draw a proctologist. So she kind of showed this around the office, and said -- showed it to my colleagues, because she at first said no to it, and then I said please, can I show it around? And she said yes and it got in the paper.

TUCHMAN: Before we go to break, can I give one hint for the next cartoon?

LUCKOVICH: Yes, yes please.

TUCHMAN: Since they are now taking off your shoes at the airport a lot, maybe a podiatrist?

LUCKOVICH: Oh, that would be good. That would be good.

TUCHMAN: That's why I'm not in your line of work. Thanks, Mike.

We will have more to come right after this. Please stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TUCHMAN: We welcome you back to TALKBACK LIVE. We are talking about political cartoons. How far is too far?

Steve Benson, are there ever times when you do a cartoon and the next day you wake up and feel, that was a real mistake?

BENSON: Again, sometimes you don't anticipate, like I don't think this cartoonist at "Concord Monitor" did, the emotional or unintended reaction you will get.

For instance, I did a cartoon on the collapse of the bonfire set up at Texas A&M in 1999, which resulted in literally thousands of e- mails. And when I looked at it with hind-sight, I should have give the issue at least another day to flesh out and I probably would have come back with a different image.

Editorial cartoonists want to be topical, they want to be cutting edge, they want to be right there with the news as it breaks and is developed, and so sometimes we have to be careful that we don't rush to judgment too quickly because it can come back and bite us. And perhaps giving it just a night to think about it and to chew on it is the better course of valor.

TUCHMAN: Our audience members come from all over the U.S. and the world but we have one in the back from New Hampshire. I am going to test you to see if you from New Hampshire. What is the capital city, how do you pronounce it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Concord.

TUCHMAN: Concord, very good. Give that man a prize. Not Concorde, but Concord.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not Concorde, that's the jet.

TUCHMAN: Let me ask you your opinion on this matter. It is a newspaper you have read. What do you think?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I think it was maybe a little distasteful and bad timing, but I don't think it is anything to be made a big national issue out of. If you want to make a statement you got the "Concord Monitor" and you read that and didn't like it, well, call or write the editor, cancel your subscription, pull your ad out, whatever. But to send a cartoonist, for instance like this gentleman, our guest here, saying that you are human garbage for putting a cartoon on, we should be sending those emails to the priest who was molesting the children, not to cartoonist who published an issue like that.

TUCHMAN: Your viewpoint is well taken by many people in our audience, but there are many people who feel it should not have been there. This gentleman, Ryan, is from California. What do you think about the cartoon?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think even though the freedom of speech exists, I think it was a little too close to the attacks. Even a few months later, with all the deaths in the country that the country went through, I don't think it was the right time to put something like this out.

TUCHMAN: Mike Luckovich, do you edit yourself or do you have an editor look at that stuff and say, Luckovich, you are doing it again, we can't risk this, we are going to get a lawsuit?

LUCKOVICH: Yes, I have an editor that makes me go back into my room if I've gotten too nutty on something. And so you really need that because you lose your objectivity. If you look at something all day, it loses its meaning and sometimes you will think something is just great and it just is absolutely insane.

You need an editor, but getting back to this particular cartoon, the editors apologized, and the cartoonist said he probably shouldn't have used that image and it is all going to blow over and they always say that all publicity is good publicity. So this cartoonist, it will all blow over and he will be known as the guy that did the crazy cartoon that made -- that got on CNN. So...

TUCHMAN: You think so? You think this might not hurt his career?

LUCKOVICH: No. It won't hurt is career. To me it's a little bit overblown...

TUCHMAN: Mike, excuse me for one second. President Bush is about to speak in Milwaukee, Wisconsin we want to go to Bill Hemmer.

(INTERRUPTED FOR CNN COVERAGE OF A LIVE EVENT)

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com