Secret Service Turned Away From Newspaper Office

[kskiska]

The Los Angeles Times refused to allow a Secret Service agent to speak to an editorial cartoonist who drew a man pointing a gun at President Bush, the newspaper reported Tuesday.

The agent went to the Times office Monday to speak with Michael Ramirez, whose cartoon in Sunday's Opinion section showed a man labeled "politics" pointing a gun at Bush in a background labeled "Iraq."

Ramirez said it was a takeoff on a famous Vietnam War photograph of a South Vietnamese general executing a Viet Cong officer.

(snip)

Karlene Goller, a lawyer for the Times, met with the agent in the newspaper's security office and told him he could not speak to Ramirez. After some discussion, the agent left.

Goller said she was told by a Secret Service official that the inquiry was routine.

The agent later declined to discuss the incident by telephone with a Times reporter.

An Associated Press call Tuesday to the Secret Service office in Los Angeles was not returned.

Ramirez said the agent called him Monday and asked if he could visit. Ramirez said he thought the call was a hoax and said yes.

"So when he showed up I was completely surprised," he said.

more…
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/07/22/state2101EDT0230.DTL