ProJo Apologizes for Cartoon

The NAACP's outcry over a ProJo cartoon from this weekend that depicted Majority Leader Gordon Fox shining the shoes of Speaker William J. Murphy, depicted as a king ceding his throne to the heir apparent, was probably overdone.

The ProJo made a dumb mistake, here - Fox is half Cape Verdean and the paper should have realized the potential for offense - but the intent of the cartoon seemed clear. This was a bit of political satire. Still, the ProJo said in a note on its editorial page today that it is "saddened" by the offense taken.

An Oct. 10 cartoon on these pages portraying Rhode Island House Speaker William Murphy and Majority Leader Gordon Fox upset some people who took it as referring, at least in part, to Mr. Fox’s Cape Verdean ancestry. Absolutely no such reference was intended by the cartoonist, Jim Bush, or The Journal. We are saddened to have offended any group.