Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Keepin' It Classy At The NY Post

I admit that sometimes the Post runs decent stories, but their rep is ruined by the nastiness that of the paper that bubbles up to the surface from time to time. It is widely known that the rag has a conservative bent, but it is a true shame when the editors can't do their jobs. The edit, or shall I say lack thereof concerns an editorial cartoon that fuses the story of the violent chimpanzee in Connecticut with the stimulus bill brought forth by President Obama.

From The Huffington Post:

The drawing, from famed cartoonist Sean Delonas, is rife with violent imagery and racial undertones. In it, two befuddled-looking police officers holding guns look over the dead and bleeding chimpanzee that attacked a woman in Stamford, Connecticut.

"They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," reads the caption.

An email to Delonas and a call to the New York Post went unreturned. The cartoon appears both on the New York Post website and page 12 of the Wednesday paper.

At its most benign, the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill was so bad, monkeys may as well have written it. Others believe it compares the president to a rabid chimp. Either way, the incorporation of violence and (on a darker level) race into politics is bound to be controversial. Perhaps that's what Delonas wanted.

You can view the cartoon at the link above, I can assure you it is rather disturbing. Whatever the intention of the editors of the Post, the decision to print it is a real shame. Either they were stupidly ignorant at best, or maliciously embedding racial undertones at worst. Perhaps putting it back in the paper on page 12 suggest they felt a little guilty about inserting it at all.