Did you just call the President of the United States a “victim”? Nowhere in the cartoon does the name, Obama appear, it references the “writer” of the stimulus bill, which we all know was Pelosi. How many of you “outraged” folks called Bush, “chimpy” in the last 8 years? As a white,(gasp) male,(oh no he did’nt) in my 50s, I’m constantly told I wasn’t “Created by God in his own image” but descended from, get ready, wait for it, here it comes, yes, A MONKEY.

Chimpanzee’s have long been said (mistakenly) to have the intelligence level of a 3-year old human child…. which is the basis of the (bad) joke in the cartoon…. that something with the intelligence of a young child old wrote the bill.

It so happened that there was a horrific story about a chimpanzee attack in the news. The timing was perfectly poor, but on another day the cartoon might have depicted a little Adam Walsh or maybe Forest Gump, either of which would have been in poor taste but not racist.

The offense at the image was formed in the mind of the offended. That’s not to say it wasn’t real, or that it isn’t real now. The leap from the cartoon to the conclusion is incorrect, but reasonable. The editors SHOULD have realized that before it went to print. However, the intent was benign.

btw – I’ve “been a minority” for 32 years, so think on my nutz.

I didn’t claim to be. I expressed what I think.

And I’m right, so yeah. I guess I am the decider.

Make no mistake, Murdoch had a meeting or two to weigh which direction to take to make this ’situation’ go away. Some pr flack obviously advised him to issue a non-apology apology:

Regardé:

“Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted.

The mistake was running a cartoon that offended people, not running a racist cartoon.

Over the past couple of days, I have spoken to a number of people and I now better understand the hurt this cartoon has caused. At the same time, I have had conversations with Post editors about the situation and I can assure you — without a doubt — that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation. It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such.

So Murdoch is essentially saying that he’s awfully sorry so many people misinterpreted the intent of the cartoon. That’s not an apology, that’s stating that a majority of people missed the point, and he’s so sorry they missed the point and experienced such pain.

“I’m so sorry our instructions were poorly written resulting in your dissatisfaction and we will redesign them to make them more clear.”

…Is a far cry from Murdoch’s type of ‘apology:’

I’m so sorry you misinterpreted our instructions, and the subsequent death ray you built, instead of the doll house, destroyed your garage. We’re sorry for your error.”

Oh, and as far as a ‘wingnut’ apology compared to a regular apology, wingnuts don’t get a lower bar just because they’re tantrum throwers. After eight years of lying, distortion and rewriting reality and history, Murdoch’s mea culps does not make a dent. His playing toy soldiers with the news resulted in untold slaughter and death of thousands, men, women and children.

Murdoch embodies the banality of evil; replete with his assemblage of little eichmanns.

Murdouch’s ‘apology’ is as faux as his ‘news’ division.

They did know that it was racist. No one is that dense.

~Peace

There was nothing wrong with the cartoon but the caption. It should have read: “We should have done this eight years ago and we wouldn’t need a stimulus package.”

I actually would have been offended with the cartoon regardlessly. Frankly, death has no place in this style of humor.

Mr. Philby Says:

Stop the presses!

If you’ve got nothing to say Mr. P, why don’t you just say NOTHING.

Ben Smith is an idiot. This is an indication of nothing. Murdoch didn’t have to apologize. The union of people that read the post and were offended by this dumb hack cartoon is insignificant.

I don’t know… granted that Murdoch did the decent thing with this apology, it begs the question did he do it for reasons of decency or because the Post can’t afford not to? I’m not one to give a lot of credence to the notion that Rupert Murdoch does things based on concepts like decency. It has raised a pretty big flap, at least throughout Left Blogistan. And with his newspapers already bleeding cash at a regular basis, the last thing Murdoch needs is for them to start pissing people off left and right.

I won’t hold my breath.

Oh, BS. Sean Delonas has been the epitome of disgusting bad taste in cartooning for a long time, and this is hardly the first time he’s drawn nasty and vile cartoons and gotten called on it.

Cheers,

ElBruce Says:

Even if he doesn’t fire the editors to appease the likes of us, he should fire them for refusing to give up a proper apology, and thereby forcing him to do so. He shouldn’t have had to step in, they should have taken care of it themselves. But somebody on that editorial board is clearly a paranoid megalomaniac, going by the text of the “apology” they issued.

This. Also, in addition to the cartoonist having no common sense (im being charitable), he’s also been caught plagarizing from HIMSELF.