Good As You

It's not fun jumping to Delonos' defense. He is an insensitive jerk who just isn't very funny. But.... I didn't get this as racist, necessarily.

Unless one assumes that Obama himself actually wrote the stimulus bill - which I don't - this doesn't seem to tie to race.

My take was that he was saying that the bill is so bad it must have been written by a crazed chimpanzee. Not very funny, but not offensive.

Well I have to ask: Would it be better if Pelosi or some other Democrat were the dead chimp? To me, even if not racist, the graphic gunning down of the stimulus bill author is pretty f***ed up. Plus, there's the element of making light to the chimp attack while the victim is fighting for life in a hospital.

Considering Delonas' remarkably insensitive legacy, I'm having a tough time giving him much of a pass.

Timothy is being obtuse (if not a rep for the Post). EVERY major newspaper and news outlet has been referring to this as "Obama's stimulus package" and that if it succeeded it would be his first major success and his major failure.

HIS administration wrote the first version. The fact that democracy allowed both houses to submit versions of the bill does not mean it was his idea.

Stop defending racist, Republican trash. Just admit that what many of us said is true -- having an African-American president has proven value -- it's outing racists who just can't help themselves.

Here is the rational: You need the whole story.
NEW YORK (AP) — The Rev. Al Sharpton says a New York Post cartoon that appears to link President Obama to a violent chimpanzee is "troubling at best."
The cartoon in Wednesday's Post by Sean Delonas shows a dead chimp and two police officers, one with a smoking gun.
The caption reads, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."
The cartoon refers to Travis the chimp, who was shot to death by police in Stamford, Conn., on Monday after it mauled a friend of its owner.
It links the chimp to Obama, who signed his administration's economic stimulus plan on Tuesday.
Sharpton called the cartoon offensive and divisive.
The Post had no immediate comment.

Exactly, Jay. Since Obama is the president and has been pushing the stimulus package hard, it has his name on it i.e. he is connected to it. Delonas knew exactly what he was doing when he created the cartoon.

I'm with Timothy. I hate this cartoonist, but this is not a racist comment. It's a take on the chimp attack, pure and simple. If anyone is being racist here, it's all the people who insist on connecting Obama with a chimp. I thought we were past that.

PJ: I totally get and respect how/why you would see this as having nothing to do with race. However, I think you are being extremely unfair in suggesting that those who see a Obama connection in this are the racist ones. As Jay ably suggests in his comment above: The stimulus package has been intimately connected the the Obama administration, first and foremost.

Now, as for Jay's comment: Timothy is not a rep for the post -- he is a regular commenter here who's opinions are always welcomed.

On election day, a former employee of "MobileCampus" sent out a text message to all of my university's students saying "The monkey is out of the cage". A lot of speculation of racism ensued in the days to come, with lots of people really upset.

Turns out it was a Family Guy reference that was accidentally sent out (the guy didn't realize it would send) and that he was even an Obama supporter.

Monkey doesn't necessarily mean racism.

But this guy does have a bad history, either way.

You missed the one of McGreevey.... prancing... with a sheep in his bedroom:

http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/2009/02/custom_1234980491336_delonas6.jpg

At worst, it was racist; at best it was a gross lack of common sense and sensitivity.

Either way, I'm glad his work doesn't run in anything I read.

I'm still not buying it (and no I'm not a shill for the disgusting Delanos or the paper that runs his homophobic and idiotic cartoons).

Let me run a joke by you:

Did you hear that they had to shoot a deranged chimpanzee today?

Yeah, now they'll have to find someone else to write the Republican Party Platform.

OK, now read it again remembering that Michael Steele is the new Party chairman. Some might think it racist, but it probably wouldn't have been intended that way.

Frankly I don't think Delanos is subtle enough to make a commentary other than what is at the most surface or smart enough to know that he's treading into racist territory. His cartoons seem to be pretty obvious and without much depth or subcontext. Consequently, they just aren't very funny either.