The Stimulus, The New York Post Murders a Chimp, and Incites Assassination of the President

A now controversial February 18, 2009, New York Post cartoon is in my opinion a provocation to assassinate the President of the United States, or at best looks at such assassination as a trivial and deserved act. The cartoon comes off as a crude, racist, 1800's lynch mob incitement to murder that is puzzling and groping, and not what one expects from a 2009, adult, professional American cartoonist, and his editor whose leanings seem to be equally rabid. The best that can be said about the cartoon is the nation just does not need this kind of mocking stupidity especially right or any time. That part of American history is passe.

The cartoon shows New York city policemen shooting and killing a chimpanzee (a recent, real but very unrelated act) then in text bubble having the policement casually link the dead chimp with the author of the Stimulus. Also, there is a sign on a nearby lamp post reading "beware of dog" which is not where such a sign is found, but for crude symbolic reference to race and the civil rights history of police violence on African-Americans it works.

[NYPost link: http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&start=1&q=http://www.nypost.com/delonas/delonas.htm&ei=5xicSc6SLJj-NMHyyaEF&sig2=gGeKKr1k-HlJQzERpJ926Q&usg=AFQjCNFgNgoYZPOkDjvec-zhxl2wwxvPsA]

Even at best, the cartoon earns a 'malicious' badge because the clear intent is to provoke or justify violence with a kind of seventh grade, adolescent snicker. Even for unsubtle thinking it is easy to connect the images as symbolic of killing the President. But hiding at the core of this tale is an irresponsible, troglodyte editor who is rumored to be a 8th level Hoodoo follower and who wears full body, hair suits and rewards special staff (usually this cartoonist) with the privilege of flogging him in his overheated cubicle ofice and ironing his satin hood. The cartoon fails at humor, but succeeds in entering dangerous ground because it equates the President with a murdered chimp and suggests the resolution to the Stimulus debate is assassination. There it is.

The puzzling aspect of the cartoon is that even if one wishes to be generous and give the benefit of doubt to the Post a it is crying to have, the newspaper and its owners come off as ignorant of, or deliberately insensitive to, current national trends and events which are marked by the real efforts of more Americans than ever to move past race baiting. Also, just why would a New York city newspaper want to appear crude, racist, inciting, juvenile, even perhaps criminal. Hmmm, sounds like the New York Post.

Almost immediately, the cartoon appears a deliberate mis-linkage, crudely disguised as humor, intended to convey a message that the champion of the Stimulus, the President who is the central communicator of the Stimulus (and the chimp by racial stereotype), could or should suffer terminal violence...hint, hint?? The 'hinting' is as clear as day, it is the chief device relied on by the cartoonist in his trade craft, and it is a cowardly tactic since the cartoonist and the editor hide behind the white sheet hoods of invoked humor and editorial freedom. To claim the Post was not aware of the symbolism of the cartoon seems to be just another deliberate, irresponsible diversion. Worse,the attempt by the Post to beg off as being a victim of misreading, just comes off as another malicious snicker.

This being a nation of constitutional freedoms those principles are worthy of respect to repect, especially freedom of speech. And that is the rub. The cartoon is an intentional hate expression, of race, disguised under a thin sheet of ignorant and unsubtle political disagreement. The Post should give an apology to at least give the impression it values what is left of its dignity.