Roasting Old Glory

For those not tuned in to the yak-attack media last week, you missed a ruckus over the Mike Luckovich cartoon shown here. Some read it as equating Americans with terrorists rather than as questioning what’s fair game in fighting Al Qaeda, which is what Luckovich says he intended. Bill O’Reilly nearly spun out of control as he exploited the misinterpretation. O’Reilly didn’t openly incite the faithful to riot, but he did refer to liberal newspapers as “the enemy.”

At least a few conservatives stood up for the 1st Amendment: Three stalwart Republicans in the Senate joined Democrats to snuff out an anti-flag-burning bill, just in time for July 4. Here’s an idea: If you don’t like Mike’s cartoon, join the thousands who have e-mailed him to say so — or shred, recycle or stuff this paper into your Weber grill ... if you think that it’s OK to burn a reprinted copy of a pre-desecrated flag. — Joel Pett

Joel Pett is the Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist of the Lexington Herald-Leader. His work also appears in USA Today.