NY Post Blasted by Angry Readers, Public After Chimp Cartoon

By: Jackie Jones and Glenn Minnis

During the presidential campaign, The New Yorker magazine caused a stir with a satirical cover that portrayed then-candidate Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, as militant terrorists.

It was, the magazine said, an attempt to poke fun at wild and wildly inaccurate rumors swirling about the Obamas’ political and religious leanings. Instead, the magazine took a great deal of heat for missing the mark.

Now the New York Post finds itself in a similar mess.

A cartoon in Wednesday's Post by Sean Delonas shows two police officers standing over the body of a bullet-riddled chimp. One of the officers says the other, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."

Civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton called the cartoon "troubling at best, given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys."

The Post, Sharpton said, should clarify the point it was trying to make with the cartoon, which was playing off Monday's rampage by a pet chimpanzee in Stamford, Connecticut that left a woman severely mauled. Police ended up killing the chimp.

The cartoon set off a furious response against the Post. Phones at its offices rang all day with furious callers. Protesters picketed the newspaper's headquarters in Manhattan, demanding an apology and a boycott and chanting "shut the Post down."

The newspaper’s editor, Col Allen, defended the cartoon Wednesday, suggesting Sharpton was creating a controversy where none existed.

"The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut," 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."

NY Post Blasted by Angry Readers, Public After Chimp Cartoon....