New York Post releases statement on controversial cartoon

This statement was released by the newspaper Thursday night in response to protests over its cartoon.

Under the headline "That Cartoon," The New York Post last night put up on its Web site the following editorial:

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 stimulus 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.

-NewsDay