The New York Times /Reuters (7/22) reports, "The Secret Service is studying apro-Bush cartoon in the Los Angeles Times , showing the president with a gun to his head, as a possible threat, US officials said on Monday. Cartoonist Michael Ramirez said the drawing, which ran in Sunday's paper, was only meant to call attention to the unjust 'political assassination' of Bush over his Iraq policy. The cartoon, based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph from the Vietnam War, depicts Bush with his hands behind his back as a man labeled 'Politics' prepares to shoot him in the head. The background of the drawing is a cityscape labeled 'Iraq.'" Secret Service spokesman John Gill said, "We're aware of the image and we're in the process of determining what action if any can be taken." An official who "asked not to be named said: 'The Secret Service does take threats against all of their protectees very seriously and they have an obligation to look into any threat that's made against any of their protectees.' The official did not elaborate. The 1968 photograph on which the cartoon is based showed the instant before South Vietnam's national police commander pulled the trigger in a summary execution of a Vietcong prisoner on the streets of Saigon. The brutality of the image was credited by many with helping to turn US public opinion against the war."
The Los Angeles Times (7/22) reports, "An editorial cartoon in The Times that depicted a man pointing a gun at President Bush prompted a visit to the newspaper's offices Monday by a Secret Service agent, who asked to speak to cartoonist Michael Ramirez. The agent was turned away. A Secret Service official said the inquiry was routine, according to Karlene Goller, an attorney for The Times who met with the agent and later spoke to an official in the agency's Los Angeles office. The government asks questions of anyone publishing material that might be construed as a threat against the president. Goller said she met with the Secret Service agent, Peter J. Damos, in the newspaper's security office and told him he could not speak to Ramirez. After some discussion, Damos left. Reached later by telephone, Damos declined to discuss the incident with a Times reporter."