A brouhaha has erupted (those things do nothing but erupt, right?) over an editorial cartoon in the New York Post today. As CNN has it: Sharpton blasts Post cartoon linking stimulus bill to chimp.

A New York Post cartoon Wednesday drew fire from civil rights activist Al Sharpton and others who say the drawing invokes historically racist images in suggesting an ape wrote President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package.

The artist, Sean Delonas, called Sharpton’s reaction “ridiculous,” and the newspaper defended its decision to run his cartoon. But other African-American leaders joined Sharpton, who has been the butt of previous Delonas panels, in attacking what they called the cartoon’s racial overtones.

“Sean Delonas’ cartoon in today’s New York Post is insensitive and offensive,” National Urban League President Marc Morial said in a statement issued Wednesday afternoon. “Comparing President Obama and his effort to revive the economy in a manner that depicts violence and racist inferences is unacceptable.”

The cartoon showed two police officers standing over the body of a chimpanzee they just shot, a reference to this week’s mauling of a Connecticut woman by a pet chimp, which police killed after the attack. In the cartoon, one of the officers tells the other, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

Well, I’ve read the New York Post for many years, and I can assert what a casual browse through the archives would quickly confirm: Sean Delonas is one tasteless cartoonist. I don’t count myself a prude or a square, but probably nine times out of ten when I see his cartoon of the day I shake my head instead of chuckling. OK: sometimes it’s a little of both. He certainly sees no sacred cows. I don’t mind irreverence and such, but too often his work just doesn’t tickle my funny bone. Of-course, humor is a matter of taste. Some might say that what’s funny is seeing just how far over the line Delonas can go.

Today’s cartoon is very typical of Delonas. He’s taking a story that’s currently in the news pages, and twisting it a little to make it into a commentary on another story — and in a thoroughly tasteless way. But the tastelessness is nothing to do with President Barack Obama and his alleged resemblance to a chimpanzee. That is simply in the heads of those, like Sharpton, who are running with that angle. The tastelessness is in using the really horrifying story of the events the other day in Stamford, Connecticut to make a joke. The joke is just this: that the federal stimulus bill was (or could have been) written by monkeys. (Yes, I know a chimpanzee is not a monkey but that has little weight in this context.)

Anyone who paid any real attention to the last few weeks of politics regarding the stimulus bill knows that it was not written by President Obama. It was written, in the first instance, by Nancy Pelosi et al in the House. It was then changed somewhat via the U.S. Senate. Obama had a role, to be sure, in terms of his campaign promises; but so what? A cartoonist can’t draw a cartoon implying that politicians are as dumb as monkeys, if one of them happens to be an African-American?

Delonas often uses monkeys in his cartoons to portray stupidity, especially political stupidity. He is also fond of clowns. The story of Travis the chimp apparently just made a connection in his brain, which — lacking any good taste, as previously mentioned — he had to follow through upon.

The fact that Sharpton and others are jumping to the conclusion that the chimp represents a racist portrayal of President Obama is either sad or dishonest, or both.

Naturally enough, I don’t recall the Reverend Sharpton ever complaining about the well-known website George W. Bush or Chimpanzee, a site which has existed since the autumn of the year 2000, i.e. for over eight years.

It does explicitly and deliberately compare the former commander-in-chief to a chimpanzee, using side-by-side photographs. Its influence was such that left wing bloggers and commentators on sites like the Daily Kos and Democratic Underground routinely referred to President Bush as “the chimp,” or some variation. To be quite honest, when I first saw that site, I found it kind of funny. For sure, it is a lot tamer than the kinds of truly vile attacks on President Bush, and others in his administration, that were commonplace during his eight years in office. Speaking of cartoonists, remember Ted Rall? (And revoltingly offensive attacks on Bush have not stopped, by the way.)

No one should attack President Obama in a racist fashion. Anyone who does is a neanderthal who deserves to be ostracized. But ordinary rough-and-tumble political commentary, including by tasteless cartoonists, is a different matter. Delonas and the New York Post owe no apology to President Obama, or to Al Sharpton. But there’s a woman in a hospital in Connecticut who might deserve one. Unfortunately, she’s got bigger problems than this.

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