AP
 
New York, Feb 19: A New York Post cartoon that some have interpreted as comparing US President Barack Obama to a violent chimpanzee gunned down by police drew outrage Wednesday from civil rights leaders and elected officials who said it echoed racist stereotypes of African-Americans as monkeys.

The cartoon in Wednesday's Post by Sean Delonas shows two police officers, one with a smoking gun, standing over the body of a bullet-riddled chimp. The caption reads: ``They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.''

The cartoon refers to a chimpanzee named Travis who was killed on Monday by police in Stamford, Connecticut, after it mauled a friend of its owner.

Some critics called the cartoon racist and said it trivialized a tragedy in which a woman was disfigured and a beloved chimpanzee killed. Others said the cartoon suggests that Obama should be assassinated. Many urged a boycott of the Post and the companies that advertise in it.

``How could the Post let this cartoon pass as satire?'' said Barbara Ciara, president of the National Association of Black Journalists. ``To compare the nation's first African-American commander in chief to a dead chimpanzee is nothing short of racist drivel.''

State Sen. Eric Adams called it a ``throwback to the days'' when black men were lynched.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, an influential civil rights leader, called the cartoon ``troubling at best given the historic racist attacks of African-Americans as being synonymous with monkeys.''

The cartoon set off a furious response against the Post. Its phones rang all day with angry callers. Protesters picketed the tabloid's Manhattan offices, demanding an apology and a boycott and chanting ``shut the Post down.''

Col Allan, editor-in-chief of the Post, defended the work. ``The cartoon is a clear parody of a current news event, to wit the shooting of a violent chimpanzee in Connecticut,'' Allan said in a statement. ``It broadly mocks Washington's efforts to revive the economy. Again, Al Sharpton reveals himself as nothing more than a publicity opportunist.''

The cartoon drew hundreds of comments on the Internet including at the liberal Huffington Post, where columnist Sam Stein wrote: ``At its most benign, the cartoon suggests that the stimulus bill was so bad, monkeys may as well have written it. Most provocatively, it compares the president to a rabid chimp.''

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs declined comment. ``I have not seen the cartoon,'' he told reporters aboard Air Force One as Obama returned to Washington from Arizona, where he announced his plan to deal with the foreclosure crisis. ``But I don't think it's altogether newsworthy reading the New York Post.''

It is not the first time that Delonas, the longtime cartoonist for the Post's famed Page Six, has raised eyebrows with a heavy-handed caricature.

An earlier Delonas cartoon made fun of Paul McCartney's ex-wife Heather Mills for having only one leg, and another compared gay people seeking marriage licenses to sheep lovers. In a cartoon last month, an enormous Jessica Simpson dumps boyfriend Tony Romo for Ronald McDonald, the mascot of McDonald's.