Immediately the left began decrying it as a racist shot at Obama. The problem with this is that no one person has claimed responsibility for authoring the stimulus bill (you've heard what's in it....do you blame them?), but it is 100% certain that it was not written by Obama. Others claimed that the cartoon was a sexist attack on Nancy Pelosi. Um, okaaay. Sorry, I just don't see it.
To me, this cartoon combined two current news stories, the much over-hyped Travis the recently deceased chimp, and the just passed stimulus package which, in my opinion, was far too idiotic to blame on a creature as noble as the chimpanzee. I didn't find it particularly amusing, but could certainly understand the artist's motivation in drawing it.
After much hue and cry, the New York Post has issued a response to its detractors:
Wednesday's Page Six cartoon - caricaturing Monday's police shooting of a chimpanzee in Connecticut - has created considerable controversy.
It shows two police officers standing over the chimp's body: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill," one officer says.
It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.
Period.
But it has been taken as something else - as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism.
This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize.
However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past - and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback.
To them, no apology is due.
Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon - even as the opportunists seek to make it something else.
Bravo.
I personally LOVE it. =)
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