It depends how you define 'as bad', but for my money Cooke is much worse than Lemieux. And this is from a person who HATED Lemieux while he was with the Devils, and one of the most satisfying things I've ever seen on thie ice was Adam Graves punching Lemieux out...in the penalty box no less!
Lemieux had that very high profile hit from behind on Kris Draper, which was dirty and earned him a two game suspension, but as far as I know that was the only time he was ever suspended. Aside from that hit Lemieux falls more into the Sean Avery/Darcy Tucker categery of guys who are incredibly annoying to play against but more because of their mouths than what they do on the ice.
Matt Cooke, however, has been suspended multiple times, and probably ended the career of Marc Savard last year. The guy is one of the biggest cheap shot artists ever. Aside from one hit, Lemieux was not.
Sandra