Saturday, February 21, 2009
The New York Post's "chimp" cartoon unpatriotic

To depict the president of the United States being gunned down not only is not amusing, it's not patriotic, and it shows a disturbing lack of respect for the office, regardless  of who is in the office.

President George W. Bush was often depicted as a chimp and lampooned as the "grinning monkey" on numerous websites. It's not the chimp that bothers me about a recent New York Post cartoon showing a chimp that might be construed as President Obama. What bothers me is the depiction of someone who, based on the text  regarding the stimulus plan, would appear to be a president of the United States. To depict the president of the United States being gunned down not only is not amusing, it's not patriotic, and it shows a disturbing lack of respect for the office, regardless  of who is in the office.
I'm all for lampooning presidents. They have rightfully been the targets of many a witty pen, but there are lines that shouldn't be crossed.
Did I see anything wrong with the famous Muhammad-wearing-a-bomb-turban cartoon published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten a few years ago? Not at all. Not one thing. That cartoon took aim at the violent aspect of fundamentalist Islam by using its chief icon to represent that very violence, it did not show Muhammad being gunned down.
There has been a lot of talk about race and the chimp in the N.Y. Post cartoon, but I think that's completely beside the point.
When I saw the New York Post cartoon, I thought "I would never publish that," and my feelings have nothing whatsoever to do with the issue of race. I don't know what the thought behind the cartoon was, or if there even was a thought behind it. I didn't think it was funny. If that chimp were indeed supposed to be President Obama then I fail to see what's funny about a presidential assassination.