No question this cartoon is totally disgusting for all the reasons stated. Truly repulsive stuff.

Maybe its suggesting the bill may as well have been written by monkeys....

Just a thought, because I didn't make the Obama connection immediately at all. It was the apes in Congress, not the WH that wrote the Stimulus.

WHAT IN THE F... DO THEY THINK THEY ARE DOING?

Sorry. I don't see the connection. Are you saying that the dead chimp somehow reminds you of our President? Because I'm not seeing it. The dead chimp reminds me of the chimp that was shot yesterday. Either way, the cartoon isn't even vaguely funny or intelligent, but I think it's a stretch to call it racist.

Recommended because this needs to be seen and action taken. It is disgusting. I do not care if this was Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid. Actually, if it were w or Boehner or Eric kantor, it would be repulsive. I am still wondering how I would feel about Cheney or Rumsfeld, but I'm pretty sure I would prefer them in jail with a live cam to enable us all to be assured they were not tortured, but actually fed the same menu as the folks in Gitmo, which they suggested was so tasty. After watching Rachel last night, a can of Ensure should be on the menu as well.

I don't get the cartoon and I don't think it's funny, but maybe the artist is making a reference to this:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/17/chimp_attack/

For some more high-brow, truly clever cartooning by Sean Delonas click on link below. Lovely fellow.

http://www.glaad.org/action/write_now_detail.php?id=3924

Its lazy, with a hint of racist undertones to drive traffic. Murdock's bleeding cash...

Their explanation makes no sense. I don't see how a chimp who went off and nearly killed someone relates in any way to the stimulus. Even if they were telling the truth, making a joke about the chimp story is appalling.

What is the most discouraging aspect of these cartoons and the NYPost is that they have sufficient readership to retain their vitality at all. Obviously these cartoons have been around for many months and the paper retains readership. Who are these people? I'm embarassed for them. Are they so completely clueless they cannot see how offensive this is?

Let me answer that question with a proposition. Is this how the argument that it is not illegal works? People will accept the presence of this filth because it is not illegal? Maybe we should respond to this inane attitude with the suggestion that whether it is illegal or not, we do have the right not to support or perpetuate it. We all agree they need not go to jail, but they need not make a fortune for this sort of excrement either. BTW, as stated above, I do support a public campaign of one sort or another. Why doesn't the free market regulate this? Why is there a market? Who are these people? Maybe a simple whisper campaign to remark when one sees someone reading the Post that it's the paper for idiots or something. Grass roots speaking truth to power.

Get a grip, people. The cartoon is a reference to the wild chimp story on the front page. It implies that the stimulus bill might have been written by monkeys. Congress wrote the bill. The racist connection you're so desperate to see doesn't exist. I know The Post world very well, and they (and Sean Delonas) have their limitations, but crude racism not among them.

Some things should not be said, if for no other reason the history of derogatory references to AA as monkeys.

Total non sequitur, considering that the cartoon has to do with the rampaging chimpanzee that was shot by police. The cartoon has absolutely nothing to do with blacks or race or Barack Obama.

The regular folk who work all day and are get their news in soundbites.

Good grief! You're the one who's prejudiced!

Can't speak for the rest of the country, but even "regular" New Yorkers are generally informed enough to know what the intended reference was.

I think you should stop getting all your news from CNN sound bites.

Yet this post has 23 recommends. Think about it. The impression that one is left with is what counts.

For clarity, I am stating that it is an offensive cartoon, but I am not accusing the cartoonist of purposefully creating an offensive cartoon.

The Post is sophomoric, bigoted and beyond intellectually bankrupt. This episode is inexcusable. The paper represents all that is contemptible about media efforts to dumb down the citizenry for profit, and as a matter of principle it would be unconscionable to purchase anything that contributes to the well-being of Rupert Murdoch...but, speaking as a Manhattan dweller who retrieves it out of newspaper recycling in my apartment building from time to time, I have to acknowledge that its sports writing can be great, and that its inane, punning headlines often crack people up and become incessant water cooler fodder. The Post and the Daily News have, perversely, infiltrated the DNA of most New Yorkers...even Upper West Siders like me.

It sucks, it's schizophrenic, but New Yorkers have a twisted love-hate relationship with the Post. There are certain quintessential New York stories that only the tabloids can be counted on to do justice to (the two miscreants in Hell's Kitchen who wheeled the corpse to the check-cashing store front in a desk chair to cash his Social Security check...you're gonna read about that in the TIMES??).

Take this morning's headline re: A-Rod: "NEXT TIME TRY TRUTH SERUM!" OK, we can be assholes about local idiosyncrasies, and that includes our sick addiction to the tabloids, for better or worse.

I'm with you on this story...but I'm likely to dumpster-dive soon for a Post if it has something important about a Paris DUI or a Jessica weight fluctuation. I mean, life can't be all Niall Ferguson and Drew Gilpin-Faust. Sometimes it's just Faust.

Something else to consider: As an aspiring cartoonist, I used to draw stuff all the time. Things I saw with my own eyes, things from television, stuff people told me about. It didn't matter. I'd just draw things. And sometimes that's how a cartoon like this gets its start. You draw the scene and only later do you come up with the caption. One time, for instance, a friend of mine and I got really baked and started drawing. I drew a picture of a guy sitting in a doctor's office with a gown on. My friend grabbed it and turned the guy's arm into a pig. Then he put a bubble over the guy and had him saying, "Doctor, this oinkment you gave me makes my arm pork." I think it was a variation on an old Henny Youngman joke or something like that. Hey, we were stoned. Anyway, we showed it to some people and everyone said it was the stupidest thing they'd ever seen. So we submitted it to National Lampoon. They didn't publish it, but I imagine if they had, we would have been accused of doing something wrong by animal rights activists or doctors or something...

This is the dumbest thread of comments we've had since the primaries ended.

You guys really get Obama out of that? Where were the catcalls when Jon Stewart actually DID mock the President by calling him a chimp.

Tempest in a teapot.

hrebendorf: "That sounds pretty unequivocal to me, actually. If it's a racist cartoon, who's going to assume that the cartoonist isn't the racist who created it?"

No. It could have been unintentional. Some things stream from the collective unconscious unbeknownst to the conduit, in this case the cartoonist. The editor should have noted the problem and ask for a redo. But then again, it's the post.

Good god! I wish there were a way to anti-rec this post.

Here is a story from yesterday:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/17/nyregion/17chimp.html

If you are in the tri-state area (the real one that involves NYC), it would be on your mind. This is the reference made.

Also, as others have pointed out, Congress writes bills, too.

To see a monkey and immediately think "Obama" tells me a lot more about the person to make the connection than it does anything else.

Were it not for this blog, the connection would never have occurred to me. In fact, I would have said: "this is stupid, it barely makes sense and plays only on one level."

Why is it that people really look hard to see something that isn't there?

I've read all of the comments here and there are valid points of view on both sides of the issue.

With that being said, personally, I found the comic offensive and racially tinged, although intentionally vague and illogical to the point of not allowing it to be characterized as outright racist.

This is an excellent time to take a moment and put yourself in someone else's shoes. I've done that and I do understand how some might interpret the meaning entirely different and/or not find it offensive and in that regard I don't protest. After repeatedly viewing it, I, myself, spent several minutes afterwords trying find another interpretation and considering how others might perceive it.

However, the feeling when I initially saw it this a.m. brought about a reaction that I hadn't felt for some time, yet it was immediately familiar--like someone had punched you in the stomach and knocked the wind out--you can't breath--the blood rises to your face and you become flushed--and you somehow feel embarrassed, not because of something you, as an individual, have actually done, and you are suddenly forced to take (yet another) moment out of your life that is constructed around the "colorblind society" notion, to confront the reality that this is how some people see you based on your blackness--an animal, less than human, undeserving of equality or respect based on merits, whose death is welcomed and celebrated, and whose existence is reduced to juvenile, disgraceful charactures.

The reason my reaction was so familiar, is that it was the same one I had when I was a freshman in high school and flyers were passed out in one of my classes by a classmate, graphically depticting blacks as primates, clinging to their porches, watermelon and fried chicken and generally being a scourge on society.

After the feeling subsided, I immediately thought of my children and how much I wish that they never have to experience these things, especially as young children and carry this same feeling into adulthood.

It would be very easy to sit here and tell you that this means nothing, that there are 20 alternative interpretations that can be derived from it, or that there's nothing that can be done to a black man of Obama's age in this country that hasn't already been done, therefore the effect is moot. However, the reality is that Obama had significant input into this stimulus package, he is the face of the stimulus package, as he's touring the country in an effort to sell it to the public; therefore, the notion that the "chimp" could easily be associated with Obama by the public is not farfetched. The dual reality is that images and "cartoons" such as these affect someone, somewhere, and have the ability to stay with people and perpetuate hurt for a very long time. I'm speaking from experience.

I'm not committed to the idea that the cartoonist's original intent was to be racist and offend; however, I do believe at some point during the editorial process, the anticipated perception must have been considered and the people it negatively affected were deemed to be expendable. That actually bothers me more than the "cartoon" itself.

In my lengthy post, I forgot to add that, for current context, I would suggest reviewing immediately pre-civil war and post-reconstruction "cartoons" featured in major newspapers depicting blacks, in a political context, as primates.

Is it just me or does the NY Post headline read:

LUSH MONKEY ?

From the NY Times

"A newsroom employee at The Post, who spoke on condition of anonymity because employees were not permitted to comment on the matter, said its newsroom received many calls of complaints on Wednesday morning after the publication of the cartoon. “Every line was lit up for several hours,” the employee said. “The phones on the city desk have never rung like that before.” Many Post staff members were dismayed by the cartoon, the employee added."

suggesting that many New Yorkers, including staff members of the Post were offended by the cartoon.

I didn't post the comment to prove the interpretation. I posted it to confirm that many new yorkers would take it this way and they did. That is the point of the coment.

This isn't about the correct interpretation. It's about the likely interpretation of many.

In this case perception is more important than reality.

While the fonts are smaller and the articles are longer, Rupert Murdock's Wall St Journal shares the Post's editorial stance and, with a much larger audience, inflicts far more harm than the Post. Fgor those who don't read it, badmouthing the WSJ at every opportunity might prove useful.

The cartoon struck me as sharply racist for reasons described in a reply to hrebendorf above. Knowing that it was in the NY Post did not surprise me at all. During the campaign there was a negative article about Obama in the Post that got my hackles up with some statements that hinted racial bias, but it was the comments on it that got me. There were blatantly racist comments, lots of them. I had to stop reading. The NY Post knows it's audience and is pandering to it. That is why they are not issuing any half-hearted, "if I offended anyone" apologies.

WOW! This went to almost 200 comments because people are judging whether anyone should be offended by this? If we compare this situation to sexual harassment, no one cares what the intent was. The entire circumstance is judged by the "victim". There is no reasonable litmus test. People were offended and who is anyone to tell them they cannot have that sentiment. Is the cartoonist and the Post within their rights? Yes. Should there be legal action? No.

It is disheartening that these people at the paper refuse to recognize that people were offended. Their intentions have nothing to do with the interpretation. That they dismiss the feelings of these people is very poor form. It's inconsiderate and unprofessional. It will continue as long as it is tolerated. I am relieved there are people willing to declare their disbelief with this situation.

As I posted above, the simple violence of the situation and the apparent lack of concern by the police is what disturbs me. It was disturbing that anyone thought that killing, even if only an ape, passed for humor. It is also disdainful that by association, murder is put into our politics.

its a nod and a wink to white,
and a warning to black. same old tired crap.
i get both messages clearly.
dont worry if you dont get that,
youre not the white theyre winkin at then.

Some of you are defending the cartoonist stating that Obama didn't write the stimulus bill. That is a moot point since he has been campaigning for it and it's in the msm headlines as "Obama's stimulus package".
I'm pretty sure the cartoonist knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote the caption and I also believe he and his editor(s) knew it would sell newspapers.
I won't, for even one minute, excuse journalists for purposely stirring up racial shit this way. They are much more worldly than I and I seen the Obama/monkey/Curious George reference immediately.

readytoblowagasket said way above

"Your argument is confused, tonnyb. You're objecting to the chimp cartoon's nonexistent subtext. You're objecting to the New York Post. You're objecting to the New York Post's readers. You're objecting to people who watch TV news because they are too busy (to read the newspaper). You're objecting to people who read the newspaper because it's written for a third-grade reading level. But just because you hate the New York Post, the New York Post's readers, people who read newspapers, and people who watch TV news doesn't mean the stupid cartoon has a racist subtext or is even worth blogging about!"

Wow! Talk about prejudices. None of this is true. Sorry you get this from what I have written but I haven't written what you claim here. You've read quite a bit into my comments that just isn't there.

I objected to the New York Post publishing the cartoon in its current form.

I don't object to the NY post, or NY Post readers, people who read newspapers, people who watch TV news, or people who read third grade level newspapers, etc ...

I have read Rupert Murdock’s "playbook". Their is nothing in it that is complementary in any way. Rupert Murdock as been a usurper in the most dis-respectful way in any country he has did business in. He's a lie and a cheat. His behavior has always been malicious. Any nuanced and insightful person who is informed knows Murdock for who he really is. Rupert's a monster; period.

The cartoon is very consistent with the message that Rupert wants to put out. The cartoon is consistent with who Rupert as always been.

Rupert is a old fashioned racist living in a world that is in serious trouble. And people are becoming less interested in these strategically divisive tactics that people like Rupert use. I'm an old man; yes that's true. But I can sense that people in this new generation wants a new way. Rupert needs to accept the fact that race and the fear of it is no longer able to be pimped out for political gain for assholes like him.

The cartoon was not "flucking" funny at all. And Rupert is one sad "Motherflucker".