My ears are burning from all the blistering they've taken over the past 24 hours, but I'm not surprised. I knew the editorial cartoon portraying Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert in bishop's robes would cause a stir, and it did. Seven angry readers called, and four others sent e-mails in which they reamed me out but good over the decision to run the cartoon on Thursday's editorial page in the Erie Times-News, which I endorsed.

All seven of the callers identified themselves as Roman Catholics and said they were sick and tired of all the Catholic bashing in the media. One apoplectic woman raged, "I suppose you're an atheist," to which I replied, "No, I'm a Catholic, too."

Then she let me have with both barrels for "letting your newspaper slander your own people." I wanted to give her my take on the cartoon and what it means in relation to the Foley scandal currently raging in the House of Representatives, but she'd worked herself into such a lather that I suggested that we simply agree to disagree. She did agree to that, adding that she will "pray for my immortal soul, which is destined to burn for eternity in the fires of hell."

Political cartoons really seem to bring out the worst in people these days. Doesn't anybody have a sense of humor anymore? Even if I don't agree with the political motivations behind certain cartoons, hey, if they're funny, they're funny.

Actually, the Hastert in bishop's robes cartoon is not laugh-out-loud funny. Rather, it makes some people smile by pointing out that, like the Catholic bishops who refused to acknowledge the depth of the problem of priests who were molesting or who had molested individuals, Hastert apparently knew about Rep. Mark Foley's improper advances toward young male pages. He knew about it and didn't do anything about it.

One caller said she is "just so sick and tired of hearing about the priest scandal, and I wish it would just go away for good." But I argued that we can't learn an abiding lesson from it if we just put it out of our minds forever. She wasn't convinced, but at least she didn't condemn my soul to the fiery flames.

The last person to call told me, "You're really not much of a Catholic, are you?" I asked how she could make that kind of judgment when she doesn't even know me. "Well," she replied, "You keep referring to Hastert in bishop's robes, and those are actually cardinal's robes."

Oh. She had me there. But I still thought it was a good cartoon.

-- Kevin Cuneo