NY Post 'Apologizes' for Chimp Cartoon

After internal discord, thousands of phone calls to the newsroom, canceled subscriptions and a demonstration in front of their building today, the NY Post has posted what it is calling an apology - or what passes for apologies anymore. A "we're sorry you're offended" apology for the cartoon published yesterday depicting two white cops shooting a chimpanzee while referring to the stimulus bill. On the opinion page and entitled "That Cartoon" here reads the heart-rending exculpation:

Wednesday's Page Six cartoon - caricaturing Monday's police shooting of a chimpanzee in Connecticut - has created considerable controversy.

It shows two police officers standing over the chimp's body: "They'll have to find someone else to write the next bill," one officer says.

It was meant to mock an ineptly written federal stimulus bill.

Period.

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.

However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past - and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback.

To them, no apology is due.

Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon - even as the opportunists seek to make it something else.

A**hats. Anybody want to start a pool for how long editor-in-chief Col Allen sticks around?