The New York Post is apologizing for an offensive cartoon it ran earlier this week.

On Wednesday, the Post ran a comic by cartoonist Sean Delonas that depicted two cops shooting a monkey.  In it, one of the officers says, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

This set off a firestorm of criticism and angry phone calls to the paper (some of which threatened violence we hear).  In fact, the lines were so busy that we kept getting busy signals when we tried calling the paper!

Although the cartoon was run without any clear context, many believe that it was a racist shot taken at Barack Obama's administration which just passed it's economic stimulus bill.

"It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.  Period," the Post stated in an editorial titled "That Cartoon".   "But it has been taken as something else - as a depiction of President Obama, as a thinly veiled expression of racism.  This most certainly was not its intent; to those who were offended by the image, we apologize."

The Post also maintains the cartoon was actually a take-off on a horrifying event in Connecticut where a 200-pound monkey mauled a woman before being shot dead by cops.

However, the Post is not apologizing to anyone who they feel is just trying to get back at the paper.  "Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon - even as the opportunists seek to make it something else," the Post stated.

We can only assume they're talking about Al Sharpton and other black leaders who planned a boycott of the paper.  Al issued a statement stating that he would lead a group of protestors in rally outside the Post's offices today at 5 p.m.  And he said he doesn't forsee the rally being called off.

"All of us can only wish the New York Post had taken a more mature position when the issue was first raised rather than belatedly come with a conditional statement after people began mobilizing and preparing to challenge the waiver of News Corp in the City where they own several television stations and newspapers," Al said in the statement.

BTW, Sean's cartoon from February 17 was of New York Governor David Paterson (the state's first Black governor) handing a porn tax to an angry New Yorker who has his pants around his ankles.

-- Sonya Eskridge
Photo courtesy New York Post