The News & Observer was more offensive than usual last week. Reader reaction to two items in the paper, a news column and a cartoon, raised the question: Where do you draw the line?

First was Barry Saunders' column Tuesday, headlined "They seek payback, not pay." The column criticized the three exonerated Duke lacrosse players for seeking a reported $30 million from the city of Durham over their arrests, now determined to be flawed. "How about a compromise figure?" Saunders wrote. "Instead of $30 million, how about a fish sandwich, a Yoo-hoo and a one-way Greyhound bus ticket?"

Also steaming some readers was Dwane Powell's editorial cartoon Wednesday, depicting Gen. David Petraeus promising a future troop drawdown while flag-draped coffins roll off a cargo plane. "Drawdown now in progress," the caption read. (You can see the cartoon at www.newsobserver.com/opinion/powell. Click on the Sept. 12 cartoon.)

Reaction to both items was swift and mostly negative. Saunders said that he received some 500 e-mails and phone messages and that they ran 70-30 against the column. A sample: "Never have I seen what I read that appeared in your newspaper today. Congratulations, you have struck a new all-time low," wrote Joan Collins of Garden City, N.Y.

"Powell sank to a new low," wrote Floyd Morgan of Raleigh. "The cartoon was cruel and disrespectful to our men and women serving in Iraq. One can disagree with the way the war is being handled and we ought to, but not this way. This cartoon was over the line."

Where is that line, between fair commentary and offense to societal norms? Well, first, let's make it clear that these items constituted opinion, not news. There is a division between commentary and news at newspapers, and these items were opinion. Newspapers have a long history of airing unpopular views, and the marketplace of ideas is better for hearing the dissenting voice.

"I didn't like the idea of him having coffins coming off the plane in opposition to what Gen. Petraeus said," reader Don Johnston of Cary said to me. Powell said making that point was exactly his intention: "I wanted people to make the connection between delaying the drawdown and, while the politicians continue to blather, these bodies continue to come over here."

Saunders' column, too, offered a view contrary to the popular sentiment that has swung solidly behind the Duke students since their exoneration in the judicial system. "The Dukies have gone beyond seeking justice," Saunders wrote. "They're being greedy and retributive." That infuriated a lot of readers.

(But let's point out that much of the invective that filled my inbox came from people outside North Carolina, nonreaders presumably, their ire ginned up by bloggers. And about that "fish sandwich," no, it was not a deliberate slur of the lacrosse players' religion, as some readers have inferred, Saunders said: "In my world, a fish sandwich is a good thing. I had no idea of the connection to Catholicism.")

More than a few readers, though, appreciated Saunders' take. "I think he hit the target on the head, and I'm real proud of him for saying it, and I agree with him 100 percent. I thank him for doing it," a caller from Goldsboro told me.

IS IT POSSIBLE, EVEN IN THE OPINION ARENA, TO GO OVER THE LINE? A couple of other items in the news illustrate how fuzzy that line is. Last Monday, the antiwar group MoveOn.org published a full-page ad in The New York Times attacking Petraeus on the eve of his congressional testimony. The headline was "General Petraeus or General Betray Us?" On Wednesday, The N&O published an op-ed article by Duke political science professor Peter D. Feaver criticizing the ad as a "McCarthy maneuver." It's legitimate, he said, to disagree with the general but not to question his patriotism.

My own view: The headline was sophomoric, but the content of the ad, criticizing the general's prosecution of the war, was within bounds of fair commentary. It's surprising, by the way, how sometimes advertising is more offensive to readers than news content.

Another case: Earlier this month, the graphics editor at the University of Virginia student newspaper was forced to resign over a cartoon depicting loincloth-clad Africans with distorted physical features, under the caption "Ethiopian Food Fight." It played on stereotypes and, yes, crossed the line from commentary to denigration.

Edward Wasserman, Knight Professor of Journalism Ethics at Washington and Lee University, says there's a rule of thumb for determining whether newspaper content goes beyond bounds of propriety. Commentary should be on the actions or behavior in dispute, he said, not on the personal characteristics or ethnic identity of the person being criticized. Criticism becomes cruelty, he said, when it's "based on who they are instead of what they do."

By that standard, the work of Saunders and Powell last week was legitimate, if impolitic. Saunders' barbs were aimed at the Duke students' financial demands, a valid topic for debate. Powell's drawing targeted not Gen. Petraeus personally but the policy the general represents.

The role of a columnist or cartoonist is not to shape consensus or forge a majority. It is to make us think about issues on the community agenda. Their best work is when they take clear positions, strongly worded (or drawn). That's what N&O readers saw last week.

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