Friday, February 20, 2009

New York Post Offers Apology!

The New York Post issued an policy regarding the controversial cartoon that was published in the paper this week depicting police shooting a chimpanzee in an effort to have someone else write the next stimulus bill. The Post issued the following apology:

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."

The Rev. Al Sharpton led protesters, who picketed outside the paper yesterday. Sharpton is not fully accepting the paper's apology.

"They made what could have been a noble gesture ignoble by trying to attack people at the same time they're trying to apologize to them. It's not opportunistic to say 'I've been offended.' This makes it hard to take them seriously."
"They've done a number of cartoons on me over the years, and I've never marched on them. They just don't get it."

This story obviously has more legs than I thought it would have with all of the other issues going on in our country. Hopefully Sharpton will get the result that he's looking for in leading the protest. The depiction a chimp possibly being the first black president is clearly offensive, if that's the intent, but President Barack Obama is a month into his presidency and people are losing their minds over editorial cartoons. The fact that we have a black president means that we've come a long, long way. This probably won't be the worst editorial that we see regarding our new president over the next 4 years, and Sharpton may want to toughen up and get ready for it.

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