The Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist and blogger Jay Bookman provides us with a funny story about how on the day that Georgia House Speaker David Ralston was to be the guest speaker at a dinner to honor Mike Luckovich, Mike’s cartoon that morning depicted the speaker as a stripper.
Ralston admitted later to being a bit taken aback. “What a coincidence,” he thought, that his first starring role in a Luckovich cartoon would occur that very day. But to his credit he never thought about withdrawing from the event, which was sponsored by the Georgia First Amendment Foundation.
That evening, however, sponsors of the dinner were a little nervous, worried that hard feelings might mar the event. As it turned out, the concern was groundless.
When Luckovich showed up at the Woodruff Arts Center to receive the foundation’s highest award, the 2010 Charles L. Weltner Freedom of Information Award, he brought with him the original version of the cartoon to present as a gift to Ralston.
In the margins of the cartoon, he left a note pointing out that he had once drawn Ralston’s famous predecessor, the late Speaker Tom Murphy, wearing nothing but a diaper. In other words, nothing personal. A grinning Ralston gladly accepted the cartoon.