The illustration by Baltimore freelance artist Greg Houston was condemned as “race-baiting” by a chorus of African-American political leaders who support Pritzker, including Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, Alderman and City Council Black Caucus Chair Roderick Sawyer, and Chicago City Treasurer Kurt Summers.

Any "race-baiting" was actually done by Pritzker in his phone call with Blago. I don't consider the cartoon racist, but it was probably a overly harsh. I think Pritzker is more of a buffoon than a racist. Steinberg wrote what I would call a fair column on the matter inside that issue. And it should be noted that Steinberg's return to The Reader was at Konkol's behest.

I think you have two issues here. One, it seems like Konkol was hated by the staff. Whether political viewpoints played a part there or if Konkol was just an asshole, I don't know.

The other likely issue is that the unions that helped finance the Eisendrath's purchase of the Sun-Times support Pritzker and likely flipped over that cartoon on the cover.

Shocking.

I think that's a fireable offense.