I tracked that site back to some guy in the Salt Lake City area (there are several guys with the same name, so I won't list here). I agree that he probably has racist motives, even tho he is not being explicit like that bar-owner who was selling similarly-simian Obama shirts in Atlanta.

Also, besides likely being racially-motivated, it is possibly a scam - he's just taking "pre-orders!"

Thanks for pointing it out, Larry.

Additonal info on this from plunderbund.com:

"I finally got a response from David and Elizabeth Lawson, the Utah couple selling Barack Obama Sock Monkeys.

Dear Joseph,
Thank you for your email and your forthright feedback. No, this is not a joke, and our intention is not to offend.
Our objective is three fold:
1} Provide a cuddly toy for the millions of Obama fans to take a little piece of their favorite candidate home with them.
2} Have a means for children to become a part of the political process with a cuddly plush toy all their own.
3| Contribute a pivotal article of presidential election memoribilia.
After test marketing our product, we found a majority of our customer base finds our plush toy fun and loveable.
By virtue of our plush toy now temporarily out of stock, we’ve had to expedite a new order of inventory to meet the needs of our customers who want TheSockObama.
Joseph, again we thank you and appreciate your interest in the TheSockObama.
Regards,
Dave & Ellee
www.thesockobama.com"

I suggest drowning these boneheads in Email (I just sent them one) at: customerservice@thesockobama.com

I posted part of this on a previous thread, but it applies here too... Let's all stop and take a moment to think about how great Barack and his campaign are. How proud he/they make us feel.

He'll get through this kinda garbage by being dignified and responding forcefully and directly with the truth. So powerful is this strategy, that it's not only neutralizing all the standard "Democrats are traitors" garbage, but it's also doing a great job defending against the "Be Afraid of this Black Guy with an Arab name and crypto-Muslim beliefs bent on terrorizing America from within with his hypnotic Kool-Aid Speeches" line of attack.

Calling bull$hit on Republicans and responding like an adult with truth is really something else.

!!Barack Obama/James L. Jones in 2008!!

Way to drive a bunch of traffic their way.

I emailed them on two different accounts. I'll post their replies if and when I get them.

I've got my buds on usenet checking it out. They may get more traffic than they bargained for.

Really, though, why a monkey? Why not just an actual Obama plush toy? And who's manufacturing these things for this guy? Don't THEY know how utterly racist this is? A black man as a monkey!? And that thing isn't styled to look like him. Sorry, but that ain't nothin' but a stuffed animal monkey with a suit on!!
Maybe, maaaayyyybe this guy was able to get a great deal on some stuffed monkeys and is just using Obama's name to move them without appreciating the racist overtones. But he damn sure knows how offensive it is by now thanks to LG. If he takes down the site and/or stops selling them, then I guess we'll know if all this was on purpose or not.
Worst part? Outside of the racist overtones, the thing's adorable! I mean, the little suit coat even comes off! Bastards...

I appreciate this post. It is better to find out how low the Republicans and racists have descended (so far) from ideological soul mates, rather than to find out somewhere else.

There are 5 months to go - how ugly is this going to get? What is wrong with this country? How did we descend into such moral bankruptcy? Is there no way to shame these idiots enough so they will crawl back to wherever they emerged from?

I am ashamed to read some of these posts on this thread. Truly, truly ashamed.

"Cuddly Obama Toy".."it is cute"..."Outside of the racial overtones, the things adorable"

Oh. My. God.

I saw this today and pretty much almost threw up. The only thing to benefit from all this, I'll be skinny by election day.

Thanks, Right Wing Racist Douchebags.

Well, I really must say, if this happened to be intentional insult, which it does not, unless covert,

I've never seen it backfire in 8 years of seeing liberals doing it with Bush.

/Top 10 Pictures Where George Bush Looks Like a Monkey

Check out what you get for results on Google for Bush monkey. It's not monkeys in the bush. And most of that was truly intentionally meant as insult, no question of innocence about it.

OK, I got a response from them. They are "saddened", profess innocence, and "guess" that they have an element of naivete in that THEY don't think that way - subtly shifting responsibility to those of us who do.

I wanted to give these people the benefit of the doubt, but I think that they probably knew exactly what they were doing. They certainly know now, and they don't show any signs of changing their plans.

I have lots of thoughts about their e-mail, but I'll limit them to one more: do they REALLY think that saying that the possibility of them coming out with a McCain plush based on "Mr. Potatohead" or that they would have done a Clinton plush based on some childhood squirrel character (Rocky?) somehow mitigate the racial undertones of a sock monkey Black man??? I think that's more than just an element of naivete, that's a deficiency of logic and likely a heaping helping of disingenuousness.

I commend them for at least responding, and responding in a civil way. But....

Here is their response:

To Those with Heartfelt Queries,

We chose twenty-two customer queries today that we believe merit a response. You touched us with either your concern, intelligence, humor, sensitivity, and/or your thoughtfulness. We thank you. There are other queries we received today as well that we chose not to respond to, because of their spewing of venom and their aimlessness.

We at TheSockObama Co. are saddened that some individuals have chosen to misinterpret our plush toy. It is not, nor has it ever been our objective to hurt, dismay or anger anyone. We guess there is an element of naviete on our part, in that we don't think in terms of myths, fables, fairy tales and folklore. We simply made a casual and affectionate observation one night, and a charming association between a candidate and a toy we had when we were little. We wonder now if this might be a great opportunity to take this moment to really try and transcend still existing racial biases. We think that if we can do this together, maybe it will behoove us a nation and maybe we'll even begin to truly communicate with one another more tenderly, more real even.

This is only our introductory plush toy. If we choose to move forward with a Republican candidate, we'll begin with an elongated and slightly lumpy, fuzzy Idaho potato. Had a different Democratic candidate won the nomination, we were prepared to move forward with the cutest, fluffiest 12" chestnut and golden-haired squirrel, with a short Farrah-like do in a brown pantsuit and call her Squirellary.

In earnest folks, we're so sorry we offended anybody.

Best Regards,

TheSockObama Co.

TheSockObama, L.L.C
P.O. Box 1837
West Jordan, Utah 84084

Whois:
domain: thesockobama.com
owner-name: Binkley Custom Products
owner-address: 163 Beach Rd.
owner-address: L8L4A4
owner-address: Hamilton
owner-address: Ontario
owner-address: Canada
admin-c: RB306-GANDI
tech-c: RB306-GANDI
bill-c: RB306-GANDI
nserver: ns1.binkley-toys.com 209.61.241.75
nserver: ns2.binkley-toys.com 209.61.241.76
reg_created: 2008-04-16 15:40:19
expires: 2009-04-16 15:40:19
created: 2008-04-16 17:36:03
changed: 2008-04-16 17:36:03

person: Robert Bishop
nic-hdl: RB306-GANDI
address: Binkley Custom Products
address: 163 Beach Rd.
address: L8L4A4
address: Hamilton
address: Ontario
address: Canada
phone: +00.19053128962
fax: +00.19055474245
e-mail: 05c43f8e6866b140a554983f9c2a5a23-rb306@contact.gandi.net
lastupdated: 2006-09-19 17:11:13

BINKLEY-TOYS.COM rediredirects to:
http://www.customplushtoys.com/

Contact Us
Phone
Toll Free - 1-866-494-0448
International Callers +01-905-312-1689

Street Addresses
In the USA
Binkley Toys Inc.
130 Church Street # 398
New York, NY 10007

In Canada
Binkley Toys Inc.
45 Goderich Rd. Suite 202
Hamilton, ON L8E 4W8
Email quotes@customplushtoys.com

Binkley Toys is apparently manufacturing this toy (and profiting from it) for :

The owners are DAVID J LAWSON and ELIZABETH A LAWSON, residents of West Jordan, UT.”

I'm a huge Obama fan who will be buying a sock monkey doll.

Being too defensive, especially in the arena of politics, is a weakness. We should all go out and buy these dolls for the next Obama rally to show our solidarity and unity in one big ironic gesture.

It shows your humility, your humor, and your ability to take the punches as they come.

thesockobama.com

The domain is registered to the Canadian manufacturing company Binkley Custom Products.

http://www.who.is/ whois-com/ ip-address/ thesockobama.com/

city@thestar.ca

http://www.thespec.com/aboutus/contactus

http://www.customplushtoys.com/quote.php

Wrote to the manufacturer less than 30 minutes ago and I've received the following response:

Dawn;

Thank you for the email. I understand what you are saying.
We are a 'Work For Hire' custom manufacturer. We do not own and have not developed the property you are referring to so we cannot comment on the intent of the creators of that product.

We have contacted the creator of the product you are talking about for them to respond to the blog. I believe they have already. We would not have manufactured a toy that was intended to be derogatory. We do not have to answer to banks or shareholders, so profit is not our absolute bottom line. I run a socially conscience company.

After hearing people's reactions such as yours, I personally was really surprised. Our staff here talked about it after and nobody here had made that connection. It is sad really. I think our greatest surprise with all of this was because we all have fond memories about sock monkey's as a toy, and that's what we do here is make toys.

We get asked to make all sorts of products. We are a Canadian company and we do refuse orders at times based on content. We do review projects to make sure they are safe, achievable, and are not offensive. I fully appreciate what people are saying about this toy, but it did not occur to us that at all that it would be seen like that.

Thanks again for the email.

Rob Bishop

Binkley Custom Products
www.CustomPlushToys.com
1-800-304-6642

Note that although he states that the do occasionally refuse to manufacture certain toys based on content; he does not indicate that they will stop making the Sock Obama based on consumer complaints.

I wrote the manufacturer this note:

In response to a letter you received inquiring about the SockObama, you said:

"After hearing people's reactions such as yours, I personally was really surprised. Our staff here talked about it after and nobody here had made that connection. It is sad really. I think our greatest surprise with all of this was because we all have fond memories about sock monkey's as a toy, and that's what we do here is make toys."

I'm sorry, but It's difficult to believe that so many people could be so INCREDIBLY oblivious of the history of racists equating black people with simians. If you TRULY "never made that connection", then I'm shocked at how ignorant so many people could be.

I'm not accusing YOU of racism, but there is such a thing as negligence. There's a certain point where people can't just claim "ignorance" over something SOooo blatatnly overt and common knowledge. If it never occurred to you that it might not be a good idea to equate a black man with a monkey, then you're wholly incompetent and not qualified to do business.

If no one REALLY made the connection, then I fear for the intellectual capacity of our great nation.

Apparently your clients have chosen to no longer make this puppet.

I hope, that, if you have ANY sense of decency, you will publicly denounce them and refuse to do any FURTHER business with them.

Sincerely,

XXXX