Our cartoon caricaturing the police shooting of a chimpanzee, said the New York Post in an editorial, has created quite a controversy. The cartoon—showing the chimp’s body and a police officer who says, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill”—was meant to mock the inept stimulus. “Period.” To those who took it as a “thinly veiled,” racist depiction of President Obama, “we apologize” for the unintended offense. To those using the issue as a chance for “payback” against the Post, “no apology is due.”
“Cute," said Party Ben in Mother Jones, "anyone who's ever disagreed with the Post doesn't get to accept the apology. Dammit!" But even though it's probably true that the cartoon wasn't intentionally racist, it was "sloppy symbolism at best" for cartoonist Sean Delonas, who has a history of offensive work, to use a chimp to criticize the stimulus bill. President Obama has taken ownership of the bill, so "it's only natural" that readers took the drawing as a knock at him.
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