The owner of the Fox Network Rupert Murdoch, also owns the New York Post which ran this cartoon.

 Rev. Al Sharpton had this to say about the cartoon:

"The cartoon in the New York Post is troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys. One has to question whether the cartoonist is making a less than casual reference to this when in the cartoon they have police saying after shooting a chimpanzee that "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 are they inferring that a monkey wrote the last bill?"

   All over the AM dial there are the promoters of hate. They make their living inciting the loathing of other Americans. Even though all Republicans do not support the doctrine of hate many in their leadership do and use it to possess power. This is even true of some who claim to represent Christ and ignore His teaching.

You have heard that it was said to our ancestors, Do not murder, and whoever murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you, everyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. And whoever says to his brother, 'Fool!' will be subject to the Sanhedrin. [A high court] But whoever says, 'You moron!' will be subject to hellfire. Matthew 5:21-22 (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer; and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. 1 John 3:15 (New American Standard Bible)

   The reason hate should be avoided at all costs is that it destroys everything that it touches. If you are a person of faith, it will demolish your faith. For a patriotic American a heart full of hate will obliterate every portion of the Constitution. What you will be left with is weaken imitation of what you once loved. Those who profit off of hate do so from deception as they would have us believe that anyone who disagrees with them is the enemy. This is how they can joke about assignation without any remorse, their souls were among the first that they deceived.

Does anyone say he is in the light, and hates his brother? Then he is still in the dark. . .the man who hates his brother is in the dark. He lives in the dark. He does not know where he is going, because the darkness has made him blind. 1 John 2:9&11 (Worldwide English)

   On the 19th the Post gave a half-hearted apology which was full of more denial than taking responsibility for feeding the beast of hatred. If the cartoonist had not been known for racist drawings one might believe the spin.

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.

   What the Post is missing is that this goes beyond racism alone. To suggest that assassination of anyone with an opposite opinion is the worst type of hatred as it multiplies. Hatred will destroy all that it touches and this is why the Bible condemns it. Denial is not the answer, nor is a half-hearted apology which is only designed to silence opposition. As a race, that is as Human race we must learn to respect those we passionately disagree with. We must rely on the rightness of our cause rather than on manipulating emotions to the point of irrationality.

*Leviticus 19:17 (New Century Version)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/18/new-york-post-cartoon-race

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/18/new-york-post-chimp-carto_n_167841.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/20/new-york-post-apologises

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02192009/postopinion/editorials/that_cartoon_155984.htm