No, we're not going to reproduce THE cartoon, but we're riveted by the spectacle -- is NY Post editor Col Allan really defying Rupert Murdoch?

Is our Rupert going to have to fix this mess himself?

by Ken

I have mixed feelings about reproducing "the cartoon" -- you know, the one where the cops shoot the chimpanzee, and one says to the other, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill" -- the latest outrage perpretrated under the guise of "humor" by the New York Post. It seems the cartoonist in question, Sean Delonas, has an extensive history of really ugly cartoons that find "humor" in blatant racial and anti-LGBT bigotry.

So here's what I suggest: Go to this glaadBLOG post, CALL TO ACTION: Sean Delonas & The New York Post, which not only reproduces this particular offending cartoon but contains lots of excellent links to other righteous blogscreams of anger and in particular a link to a slideshow of Delonas’ defamatory and anti-LGBT cartoons gathered by GLAAD.

Pugnacious Post editor Col Allan had defended the Delonas fiasco, which drew outrage from all over the map, including but hardly limited to the Rev. Al Sharpton, as “a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut. It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist." Left unexplained, of course, is what connection there is between the unfortunate incident of the chimp, Travis, who actually had to be shot in Connecticut, not what you would think of as a potential laff riot to begin with, and the writing of the stimulus bill.

Last night on Countdown, Michael Wolff -- the man who literally wrote the book on Rupert Murdoch (The Man Who Owns the News) -- seemed confident that, as he had indicated on his blog, Mr. Murdoch himself was so upset by this development that Allan's days at the paper were numbered. The assumption is that Col has been preparing for a return to Australia anyway. Wolff insisted that Rupert actually likes Obama, and wants good relations with him -- also reminding us of his theory that Murdoch has in fact been liberalized by his present wife.

Of course Allan wouldn't be summarily dispatched. Our Rupert doesn't do that, not least because it would suggest that he's responsive to outside pressure, something he's spent his entire professional life disproving. But there was no question that word would come to Allan from above to make this mess go away, and soon enough Col would be Australia-bound.

Returning to Countdown tonight, after the Post issued a half-assed non-apology that in fact attacked many of its attackers, Wolff was as astonished as anyone. Col Allan ("an incredibly angry man," Wolff assures us), instead of retreating, and far from going quietly, is fighting back -- apparently all by himself. "The most isolated man in the state of New York," is how Wolff described him. Reportedly, nobody at the paper is supporting him. Even the Page Six people, for goodness' sake, are referring angry callers to the news desk.

And there's a general feeling that in these parlous times our Rupert may be vulnerable, especially when threats are made to reopen the matter of the federal waiver by which his News Corp. is allowed to own both multiple TV stations and also a newspaper in the New York market.

Now it gets interesting. Surely by today Master Rupert's wishes had been conveyed to Col Allan, and it seems clear that he's not honoring them. Is this going to require direct intervention from the master? Will the Post actually have to own up to, and maybe even renounce, its unstated but open policy of courting readers with crude racial and sexual bigotry? Stay tuned.

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