86New York Post Continues Its Tradition Of, Uh, Fine Journalistic Integrity

The New York Post ran a cartoon in today’s issue that has some people really upset.  The comic depicts President Obama as a dead chimpanzee.  The picture is meant to draw a parallel between the chimp attack from earlier this week and the economic stimulus bill.

Reverend Al Sharpton, president of National Action Network, had this to say:

The cartoon in today’s New York Post is troubling at best, given the racist attacks throughout history that have made African-Americans synonymous with monkeys. One has to question whether the cartoonist is making a less than casual inference to this form of racism when, in the cartoon, the police say after shooting a chimpanzee, “now they will have to find someone else to write the stimulus bill.”

Being that the stimulus bill has been the first legislative victory of President Barack Obama (the first African American president) and has become synonymous with him it is not a reach to wonder whether the Post cartoonist was inferring that a monkey wrote it? Given that the New York Post cartoonist has come under heavy fire in the past for racially tinged cartoons including the infamous cartoons depicting 2001 mayoral candidate Freddy Ferrer and me in very unflattering ways (that ultimately was used as a campaign tactic to inflame racial prejudices), one cannot ignore that history when looking at this morning’s cartoon.

The Post should at least clarify what point they were trying to make in this cartoon, and reprimand their cartoonist for making inferences that are offensive and divisive at a time the nation struggles to come together to stabilize the economy if, in fact, this was yet another racially charged cartoon.

In general, a comparison between our African-American president and an assassinated primate?  Probably not a good idea.

February 18, 2009 at 7:51 am by Wendie

28Quotables

“I wish her nothing but the best and I hope she’s happy — whatever size that comes in.”

ZING!

Nick Lachey weighs in — ha ha no pun intended — on the media frenzy surrounding his ex-wife Jessica Simpson’s weight gain.

Just to highlight exactly how big a deal this has become, our very own President made a comment on it during his Matt Lauer interview for the Super Bowl pre-game broadcast. The clip is below. Watch it now — it’ll be pulled soon.

February 2, 2009 at 11:57 am by Evil Beet

32First Kids Immortalized in Plush

The President and First Lady are at Oprah status right now.  You do not want to piss them off.

Ty Inc., in the age-honored tradition of increasing sales via controversy, has introduced two homely little dolls named Sweet Sasha and Marvelous Malia.  They have dark coloring and share the names of the first daughters, but according to Ty’s PR flack, they aren’t modeled after the Obama girls.  Sigh.

Needless to say, the First Family is not amused.  Press secretary Katie McCormick Lelyveld released a statement:  “We feel it is inappropriate to use young, private citizens for marketing purposes.”

Sweet Sasha and Marvelous Malia join the family of TyGirlz that includes Lucky Lindsay, Happy Hillary, Precious Paris and Bubbly Britney.  And no, that is not an attempt at humor.  These abominations actually exist.

January 26, 2009 at 6:35 am by Wendie

37This Makes Me Feel Like a Slightly Less Successful Writer

Most days I’m all like, “Yeah, beyotch. I’m 26 years old and I make a living as a writer” and I think that is pretty badass of me.

Then I go and read that the dude who wrote Obama’s inauguration speech is 27 years old. He’s supposedly the youngest White House speechwriter on record (I don’t think this is true — Ben Stein was younger when he worked for Nixon, right?), and he’s just written arguably the most important Presidential speech of our generation. Oh, and his name’s Jon Favreau (but not the one from Swingers).

I feel so un-accomplished.

At the very least, my parents could have named me Vince Vaughn.

January 21, 2009 at 8:43 am by Evil Beet

10Someone Spilled a Bunch of Coffee Grounds on Washington DC!!!

Isn’t that what it looks like?

But this is actually a satellite image of Washington DC a little past 11 am today. There were supposedly TWO MILLION PEOPLE on the mall.

All those clumps of people in between the Washington Monument and the Capitol are clustered around Jumbotron screens. The image was taken from 423 miles in space.

Craziness!

This is SUCH a different mood from when Dubya was inaugurated. What a nice change!

source

January 20, 2009 at 3:38 pm by Evil Beet

23Hey, Guess Who’s President Now?

Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States of America at 12:05 PM EST today.

You can read his inauguration speech in full here.

January 20, 2009 at 9:09 am by Evil Beet