The Washington Post pulled a political cartoon Tuesday night that portrayed the daughters of Ted Cruz — ages 7 and 4 — as monkeys.

The cartoon by Ann Telnaes showed the two girls as dancing like small simians before Mr. Cruz, who is Hispanic, dressed as an organ-grinder.

Ms. Telnaes captioned the cartoon as “Ted Cruz uses his kids as political props” and defended her portrayal of the girls on Twitter, saying that because the Texas senator showed them in a humorous political ad “they are fair game.”

“Ted Cruz has put his children in a political ad — don’t start screaming when editorial cartoonists draw them as well,” she tweeted.

Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt didn’t agree.

“It’s generally been the policy of our editorial section to leave children out of it. I failed to look at this cartoon before it was published. I understand why Ann thought an exception to the policy was warranted in this case, but I do not agree,” Mr. Hiatt said in an editor’s note that now is the sole content on the page that had featured the cartoon.

The cartoon was on The Post website for about eight hours Tuesday until Mr. Cruz led a pushback starting early in the evening.

“Classy. @washingtonpost makes fun of my girls. Stick w/ attacking me—Caroline & Catherine are out of your league,” Mr. Cruz tweeted Tuesday evening, embedding in his post a tweet from Ms. Teinaes that included the cartoon.

One of Mr. Cruz’s Republican presidential-primary rivals, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, was just as harsh in his criticism of The Post.

“Wash Post cartoon featuring @tedcruz’s children is disgusting. The Post saying the kids are ‘fair game’ is even worse,” Mr. Rubio tweeted, drawing later thanks from Mr. Cruz.

One conservative on Twitter, Judy Stines, echoed a common criticism of the cartoon — a double standard in handling Republicans and Democrats in the mainstream media.

“WaPo once demonstrates how despicable they can truly be! Ever depict Obama’s girls as monkeys?” Ms. Stines tweeted.

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