A questionable cartoon

An uproar is brewing about an editorial cartoon in today's New York Post that appears to tie President Obama to a rampaging chimpanzee killed by police.

The cartoon, by Sean Delonas, shows a chimp splayed on the ground in a pool of blood. Two police officers stand over the body, one holding a smoking gun, and the second saying, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

While Democrats, and a handful of Republicans, in Congress technically wrote the $787 billion stimulus bill, Obama has championed it, gone back out on the stump to sell it, and claimed it as his own while signing it in Denver on Tuesday.

The cartoon appears to refer to Travis, the pet chimpanzee and TV star who was shot to death by police in Stamford, Conn. on Monday after it mauled a friend of its owner.

The Rev. Al Sharpton told the Associated Press that the cartoon is "troubling at best."

Sharpton notes that Obama is the nation's first black president and that African Americans have been depicted as monkeys by racists through history.

"Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama and has become synonymous with him, it is not a reach to wonder are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?" he asked, according to press accounts.

Sam Stein wrote on the Obama-friendly Huffington Post website that it seems "rife with racial and political sensitivities."

"At its most benign, the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill was so bad, monkeys may as well have written it," Stein opined. "Most provocatively, it compares the president to a rabid chimp. Either way, the incorporation of violence and (on a darker level) race into politics is bound to be controversial."

The Post is standing by the cartoon, and questioning Sharpton's motives.

"The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut," editor-in-chief Col Allan said in a statement. "It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist."

UPDATE: Delonas told CNN this afternoon that the controversy was "absolutely friggin' ridiculous."

"Do you really think I'm saying Obama should be shot? I didn't see that in the cartoon," Delonas said. "It's about the economic stimulus bill. If you're going to make that about anybody, it would be [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi, which it's not."

The YWCA weighed in with its concerns.

"I think this cartoon is inflammatory, inappropriate and irresponsible," Lorraine Cole, YWCA's CEO, said in a statement. "It recalls deeply offensive negative stereotypes of African Americans characterized as monkeys and is seemingly directed at our first black president who championed the economic recovery stimulus bill. It also brings to mind racially charged police brutality incidents involving Black men who were recklessly shot by New York City police officers."