There is bad behavior in every campaign and then there is awful, embarassing behavior. This account evidences plenty of the latter as McCain aides openly ridicule and insult Sarah Palin. The upshot, of course, is that they are disparaging John McCain, who selected her, and Steve Schmidt, who recommended her. But no where is the weaselly conduct more in evidence that in this self-serving remark from Nicolle Wallace, one of the aides responsible for Palin’s spectacularly unsuccessful roll out:
If people want to throw me under the bus, my personal belief is that the most honorable thing to do is to lie there.
No, there is nothing honorable in announcing that you are being unfairly blamed. That would be the same as fingering the candidate for the mistakes. The appropriate comment from a loyal and competent staffer would have been something like this:
We made errors and didn’t show Governor Palin off to the nation in the way she deserved and which would have allowed her many attributes to shine through.
I am sure future campaigns and candidates will take note. Try to find the advisors who know it’s their job to take the blame, boost the candidate, and avoid damaging the people for whom they work. And if they can’t, at least be quiet.
sorry, david – any reader of the ny post’s over-the-top coverage of the gunned-down crazed chimpanzee knew in an instant what the (not particularly brilliant or funny) Page Six cartoon referenced…
the fact that people like you and al sharpton think ‘obama’ when chimpanzees appear in cartoons speaks more to your acculturated racism than horrific editorial judgment…
i can imagine the conversation @ the newsdesk: “gee, it’s a crazy chimpanzee who wrote the stimulus package…nobody will think it looks like pelosi…they’ll think we’re referring to obama…”
“but couldn;t it be harry reid instead?” “nope – he’s not crazed enough”
eric holder! where are you when we need our courage…?
The only one insulted by the cartoon is the crazed chimpanzee! Even a crazy chimpanzee could not have made such a “stimulus” package. Those who see racism in this, like Al Sharpton, show that they are the ones who immediately think of President Obama as a chump.
This post is parody, right? good lord….
David, David, save your common sense for another blog. It is lost on the Contentionistas. If you have any doubt, read the three preceding comments. The moderates have left the house. All you have left is the wackos, the extremists and the hatemongers.
You’ve got to be kidding James. I’m just repeating 1 here, but this is just so mind-boggling I can’t get over it. You’re really telling me that, following extensive news coverage of an angry, wine-drinking, Xanax-taking chimp being shot, the people that look at this cartoon and see a representation of that story are wackos, extremists and hatemongers, while the people who see Barack Obama are the intelligent, sensitive ones. Frankly, it’s difficult to imagine a more stupid, offensive view than that.
So, James, do you have an argument to make or did you think you’d simply indulge in ad hominem attacks?
An actual chimpanzee has featured prominently in the news, as has a spending bill authored by CONGRESS. There are no dots to be connected to the President except by those indulging in unseemly racial stereotyping and/or cynically seeking to play the race card to score political points or to further perverse personal ambitions.
Oh please, these are some crazy times. We should all know be under the vigilance of the politically correct police.
What if someone said “”This stimulus package is pure monkey business” ? Is this person being racist?
For Gaia’s sake, this is too much monkey business to me to be involved in…
Al Sharpton will be irrelevant if he does not keep policing for racism. Al needs a new job.
I agree with #6
It was timely and relevant.
But common sense tells us that some people would find that racist.
Should they stifle free speech by censoring it – no
Could the cartoonist have slightly altered the cartoon to keep the comic value without as much racial misunderstanding (like writing Congress inside the chimp since it was Congress that wrote the bill) – yes I think that would have been the prudent move.
re: #9
‘prudent cartoonists’…didn’t they open for led zeppelin in 1974?
anyone?
Every so often, Professional Victims need to stretch their legs to see if they can still get people to bend their knees. The syllabification tax – “African-American” for “Black,” which some of us are old enough to remember was demanded by the PVs and deemed an adequate obeisance in its day – has grown old, and it’s been years since Howard Cosell said “Look at that monkey go!” And who remmbers Earl Butz? No, it’s time to lynch a white guy to prove we can still do it in the age of Obama.
This sort of theatrics is not limited to Black PVs – the Borking of Eponymous Bob was another such exercise; Anita Hill, too. Groups need to oil to see if their infrastructure still works – can they get out the troops, muster the noise, etc., and whether they still have the clout. This cartoon, for which an apology is warranted and would have been sufficient to anyone who cared about the merits of the case, is just the maguffin in the this movie. A head may roll, but that’s a small price for having the PVs return to their caves to await the next rough beast.
Lawrence Kramer,
if a head rolls, that only proves that the PVs were NEVER back to their caves and are constantly monitoring every move, mood and sentiment of the public so that they can jump in when necessary.
To fail to comment would be cowardly.
Objective evidence – Chimp Bush returns 1.5 million hits on google; Obama chimp returns only 1.3 million. And – there was once a cartoon with Lincoln’s face on a chimp.
Additionally, the fact that the nation elected Obama means never again having to say it’s sorry. All accusations of racism made following that event are patently ridiculous.
“You’re really telling me that, following extensive news coverage of an angry, wine-drinking, Xanax-taking chimp being shot, the people that look at this cartoon and see a representation of that story are wackos, extremists and hatemongers, while the people who see Barack Obama are the intelligent, sensitive ones. Frankly, it’s difficult to imagine a more stupid, offensive view than that.” — gdp
I guess I should have added illiterate to the list. Point to where I made the above argument, and I’ll be happy to respond. David Hazony wrote that the chimp cartoon was dumb, regardless of its intent, because it was insensitive and irresponsible. I called that common sense and noted that his point would be wasted on the people here. I was right on both counts. Again, where did I characterize those “who see Barack Obama”? I didn’t. It’s simply not relevant. You have no argument, so you set up a straw man and attacked that. There’s nothing more “stupid and offensive” than that. At least you proved my point.
Paulo -
I think you’re right. The overkill is to some extent an exercise, but it is also a reminder that the PVs are there and they are watching and they can still scare our soi-disant intrepid press.
It is well understood that we are in an unprecedented crisis. We can´t just go on clinging to the failed concepts of the past, like humor and free political speech.
Not only do we need prudent cartoonists who know their limits. We have seen what harm a single unlicensed plumber can do to the nation. In the future, every cartoonist, and for that matter, every blogger, if he is of good will, shall have a government license that will protect him from the rigors of unrestrained marketforces and shattered kneecaps. It will be a clear break from our troubled past.
I have enjoyed this immensely. Not being familiar with the chimp-woman-cops story I thought it was referring to the Monkeys-and-the-books-in-the-British-Museum thing. Which, considering the effluvia emanating from Washington on the economic front, is pretty funny. And would make a great cartoon, but now no one can ever do a chimp or a monkey or a King Kong cartoon until Obama is out of office.
A small observation here: a lot of people believed that Obama’s election would represent a sea change in American racial attitudes, in particular a lowering of black resentment and white guilt: how can you still say something like “a black man can’t get ahead,” or “whites will never give blacks a real chance,” if we have just elected a black man President? Quite a few people, conservative and liberal, who would very much like to move past these attitudes, said as much to me. First of all, though, such attitudes are not automatically affected by empirical falsification (as if we could agree on what that meant anyway); second, there are plenty of people committed to making sure that those attitudes stay entrenched. They need to change the narrative slightly, but the assumption that blacks are systematically harassed and denigrated by “white” society will continue to be enforced, and those invested in that assumption will use whatever comes their way. Perhaps over time they will erode (they probably have some already) but it will be some time, if ever, before leftist politics can do without them. I suppose it is encouraging to note that this is another example of racial provocateurs scraping the bottom of the barrel–like the Duke “rape” case and that ridiculous incident in Jena a couple of years back.
Isn’t there a point at which “sensitivity” merges with “racial stereotyping”? I don’t see any “dots” to connect the chimp with Obama, since everyone knows he didn’t write the stimulus bill. The connection is the mind of some who think of African Americans as primates or the apparently many who think of other people as thinking of African Americans as primates.
It would be great if people stop making impassioned judgments about what their fellow citizens are thinking. We are fellow citizens still, yes? And for those who keep on making just judgments, it’s time to judge that they are unbalanced, unfair, and not worth listening to.
Sorry David H. but frankly I think the racists are those who thought of Obama when looking at the cartoon.
I had seen it and learning afterwards of all the manufactured (and pretty tiring) brouhaha Sharpton et al. made and I had a really hard time squaring their complaints with the cartoon…
Obviously Sharpton (and maybe you?) do not know WHO wrote the stimulus. Any connection of the cartoon with “current events” (beyond Connecticut police shoot and killing a 200-pound adult chimpanzee after the ape went on a rampage) should have seen the chimp as the Dems in Congress going into a spending rampage. That would have been the “normal” reading. The rest is a continuation of the sick manipulations of the race card: enough already!
My guess: a year’s worth of depressing unemployment reports will pretty much obliterate such hunts for a racist beneath every bed, or cartoon.
I say we should do away with all chimpanzees and all other simian creatures (other than man) and rid ourselves of this blatant stereotype-producing class. For whenever we see an ape or a chimpanzee, we can naturally only see it from one perspective.
In fact, we should force Hollywood to either destroy all copies of “Bedtime for Bonzo” and “Every Which Way but Loose”, for we know what these chimps really represent – they are nothing more than Stepin Fetchits in monkey suits.
It’s simple – if there are no chimps, we no longer have a problem. But then, given the nature of the Al Sharptons in the world, if there were no chimps, then we would have to create another one.
Hazony’s comment, “I’m not saying such expression should be banned, just that people should behave a lot more responsibly when playing in the public forum,” is a call for self-censorship. This attitude reminds me of the Mohammed cartoon debacle. Editors and others censored themselves and would not publish the cartoons out of fear–fear of offending and fear of retaliation. This self-censorship continues to this day vis a vis Muslims and Islam. Our home-grown “Jihadis” led by mullah Sharpton and
facilitated by the Harzonys of the world (those ever so sensitive media enablers) are the problem, not some cartoon. The next thing someone will advocate censoring/eliminating conservative talk radio because it is insensitive, offending and attacks the policies of a President who is black; therefore is racist. Go figure! “Projection” is a wonderfully revealing psychological mechanism.
Yes, we need to look to the more civilized practices of our liberal betters like Betty Williams, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who during a speech to schoolchildren said, “Right now, I would love to kill George (W.) Bush.”
I’ll go with James on this, so much hate and BS…
I need to take a shower from the stink of defeated republic party fanatics…
Besides, Bush 43 made a much better chimp, and he didn’t need a plan to hand out his stimulus money.
Some appear shocked that anyone would associate a chimp with the Messiah, but that’s anti-chimp humanism on their part. The real evil is the prejudice against our primate brothers and sisters that leads some to attach negative associations to animal qualities. No chimp, dolphin, gerbil, or cockroach, even one suffering from dementia and filled with drugs, is stupid or self-destructive enough to have written the stimulus bill or anything like it, and I challenge anyone to find an event in all natural history that contradicts that statement.
Only human beings are capable of such pathologically self-destructive idiocy, and the cartoonist owes an apology to our fellow species.
The question all this raises is did “Curious George” move into or move out of the White House last month?
I see that Al Sharpton has weighed in on the blogger’s side of the issue. Hopefully, he is re-thinking his goofy post.
I’m going to exercise my second amendment rights and use my DVD of “Planet of the Apes” for target practice.
Anyone who claims that the cartoon was racist is either wacko, extremist or hatemonger, and any proof to the contrary will be lost on them.
Two can play at your game, James. How do you like it?
The chimp was Pelosi! Better luck next faux outrage.
But, I thought we all came from chimps? Did black folks then magically appear out of the sky and start to inherit the earth? Weren’t the Irish also called monkeys? Aren’t white folks called pigs and why is this okay?
This cartoon is being blown out of proportion by the race baiters and hustlers. If you haven’t realized it, the Left has slowly morphed any criticism of Obama as racist dogma. Be wary of giving credence to any of their arguments, even on something as insignificant as a cartoon of a chimp being shot and the caption reading, “Now someone else will have to write the economic stimulus bill.”
It’s great to take a break from all the lugubriosity, and just have a good belly-laugh. Thanks, gdp. Beautifully put. Nolanimrod — I hadn’t thought about the “monkeys in the British Museum” (I DID know about the crazed chimp-on-Xanax incident). But that is absolutely priceless. I wonder, if you gave a bank of ten chimps each a laptop and a word processing program, how long it would take them to come up with the Biggest Spending on Earth Bill.
But of course, as CKM points out, they could only do it inadvertently. A single-celled flagellate is too smart to put together the BSoEB.
I note, as an aside, that you never see chimps obsessing over the putative subliminal implications of half-baked political cartoons either. Only man is that dumb.
Well, JE Dyer, man is a tool-using animal. And any stick will do to beat the dog–that is, those who oppose Obama’s politics or Democratic politics in general.
DocC makes a very good point–insisting on sensitivity is a slippery slope toward acquiescence in a bubble-like political discourse.
And of course, no one is ever sensitive enough for those who make their living decrying insensitivity. Again, man is a tool-using animal.
True, Margo, true.
One thing the Sensitivity Squad has accomplished here. After hearing the really appalling tale of the stupid woman keeping a chimpanzee (a wild animal, not meant to be domesticated) in her home, the chimp’s terribly maimed victim, and the poor chimp’s sad fate — I went through a brief period when “chimpanzee” made me think “stupid woman keeping one in her home.”
Now “chimpanzee” makes me think “Obama.”
David
You, Kerry-like, are for censorship before it becomes necessary for censorship. Something like “prematurely anti-fascist”?
And when you say that you’re
“not saying such expression should be banned, just that people should behave a lot more responsibly when playing in the public forum”,
some would suggest that you’ve got a monkey on your back, but you’d see that as, um, you know, like racist or something, I, um, guess.
J. E. Dyer
Now when I hear “chimp” or “monkey” or any simian, I’ll think of the perpetually aggrieved making a monkey out of us average reasonable folks.
Jen Rubin quotes this AM with approval the following:
“The last thing Virginia — or any state — needs now is a monkeywrench the size of card check sticking in the economy’s gears….”
Monkeywrench? The wench.
(No point-of-order comments about “monkeywrench” having nothing to do with simians. Ya see, logic, reality, commonsense have nothing to do with the needs of the perpetually aggrieved, whose grievances contain multitudes. Transcendental multitudes.)
Me? I think that the Notre Dame leprechaun is a slight to Joe The Biden, a/k/a Ditto Boland.
Margo: excellent intellectual “connection” in your #34!
David Hazony, politicly correct weazel – but not a weazel filled with bullet holes. Can someone check if you can use or say weazel?
Damn, From Inwood. Monkeywrench? You made me think “Obama” again.
RBrandt — you might want to check your spelling of “weasel” before proceeding further with a rhetorical dispute over the word.
I thought immediately of Pelosi, as only someone in a coma for two weeks would not have known that she wrote the bill. The Post, however, having tangled with the despicable scoundrel Sharpton many times before, should have anticipated that he would drum up some faux outrage, desperate as he is to stay relevant in the Obama era. And, he ( Sharpton) is probably low on cash, as he didn’t run for president and have federal matching campaign funds to steal this election cycle.
…i think we need a cartoon of a crazed chimp being quoted as saying he’s outraged having al sharpton speaking on his behalf…the chimp should disavow any connection with al and insist that jessie jackson – no, scratch that! – eric holder – no, scratch that! – i’ve got it! – PETA is best positioned to represent his interests….
I, for one, am tired of bowing down to our PC overlords so, those of you that are faux offended by what this cartoon obviously does not represent, can go stuff themselves–go find somewhere else to play at being offended.
The rest of us are tired of being called (or, at best, implied to be) racists/bigots/Nazis because we don’t share your finely-warped sensibilities that have helped you survive cocktail parties in places like the Upper West Side, Malibu and Berkely.
After 8 years of the President being portrayed as chimp, is it any surprise that some people still hold that association?
ECM 43
You nailed it. And I can always count on a self styled “Conservative” or “Moderate Conservative” enabler at a cocktail party, bar-b-Q, christening, Bar Mitzvah, or Wedding to say something like:
“Unlike [Inwood], I’m not uncompassionate. I can see where this, um, statement/action by [some Republican] was basically meant to, you know, be fair & uncontroversial, but, you know, because of their reputation toward the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, not to mention the way it was said, it, you know, just didn’t, um, clearly foresee the consequences of the words & actions, taken in good faith, of course, &, um, why such words & actions in the public arena can cause thoughtful concerned people like [some perpetually aggrieved bozo] to, um feel hurt. But that’s just my opinion & I know that [Inwood] tends to be somewhat, um, apologetic toward, you know, less-than moderate Right Wingers….
David,
“insensitive” is not a synonym for “racist,” and racism is not a thought crime–yet.
The people who reflexively decry the cartoon as a racist attack on Obama are the ones who have problems, not the people who are intelligent and honest enough to understand it. The overwrought condemnations of the cartoon are in direct opposition to free speech, whether they’re meant to be or not.
Jim Allyn wrote what most leftists feel: lampooning Bush as a chimp is commendable, but lampooning Obama as a chimp is offensive. It doesn’t even matter to them that the cartoon in debate didn’t lampoon Obama.
The other trolls on this thread are more circumspect than Jim, but on all the moonbat blogs the NYP cartoon is already being described as a racist hate crime against the Obamessiah.
You know it´s hard out here for a chimp….
J. E. Dyer
Whenever I hear “monkey”, I think of Peter Sellers’ “minkey”.
And of Princeton “bioethicist” and animal-rights activist, Peter Singer (not to be confused with the singer, Pete Seeger), who feels that monkeys are equal to men, so why the fuss if someone were comparing The One to a monkey, which he wasn’t, but nevermind.