This is the most famous and most-admired African-American woman in the world — Michelle Obama — as seen through the hateful vision of comic book artist Batton Lash. A right-wing blog posted these extremely offensive images of the first lady. Lawrence has more on this story in the Rewrite.
Racist caricature of first lady on website
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Tue Feb 15, 2011 11:26 PM EST
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And they call themselves CHRISTIANS!
I saw the full cartoon. I would think women would be most offended since Mrs. Obama is represented as a fat, black, women shouting orders in the manner a man ,with an agenda, is pleased to show.
There is nothing funny about this but not sure it rises above what it is, subtle rascism. Obvoiusly this cartoonist knows how to tread carefully and is probably thrilled that it made the big time instead of staying where it should, in the dark.
The cartoon isn't funny and it isn't racist. Talking about reaching. Last thing I want to see or hear is some liberal blow hard preaching to me about racism.
Not even close to "racist's".
Keep up this rant Liberal/Progressive/socialists. The word has lost it's kick, Thanks to people like this!
Lawrence is a self proclaimed "Socialist whiner".
Who are "THEY" and how do you know they call their selves anything? Liberal B.S.
Well the racist far right wing nuts are once again exposing just how racist, vile, and offensive as well as ignorant they are.. and of course they would deny as they continue to expose themselves for the hateful ignorant fools they are! Thank You Mr O'Donnell to speak out against that which is so offensive, disrespectful, egregious and vile.
You must be one of those libtards that thinks it's ok to say "Hang Clarence thomas" or "Put him back in the fields".
.
that's what I thought.
Here's my response to your ludicrous lies, Larry. You're a joke.
Really great attempt to make an issue out of nothing... Seriously, find some real news to report and quit wasting viewers time with the propaganda driven agenda.. No wonder msnbc is sucking it up in the ratings if this is the stuff deemed news worthy..
you are obviously not black or a women. if you were this would be offensive.
although i am not african-american, i am a women and i find it extremely offensive that michelle obama feels she has the authority to control the eating habits of an entire nation. maybe her two daughters and her husband, but NOT THE ENTIRE NATION!!
lawrence o'donnell's entire family should be embarrassed and tell him to stop speaking. this cartoon is clearly a non story. there are much bigger problems in this country than a cartoon!!
Where do come up with the BS, "authority to control"? Come on, back up your BS.
Just about every First Lady has taken on a cause in American Life. It's become a tradition. Obesity in our young people has become a very real issue and Michelle has taken on the promotion of healthy eating as any good mom might very likely do.
Now you come in and take offense, probably because you stuff your kids with fat, sugar and salt followed by butterfat and lard and feel the need to push your excess weight around. I'm sorry but that is the only explanation I can perceive to an otherwise innocuous topic.
In case you haven't figured it out, I'm sick of hearing crud like this.
Other first ladies weren't granted regulatory powers, Bub.
I listened to your embarrasing wimpy snivelling tonight as I switched between your channel and the real news. No surprise your ratings are what they are. It's also hypocritical that you whine about this but completely ignore any news that even remotely critisized the Obama administration. You would do well to look for some point/ counterpoint news and try to fairly report the news in a less bias manner.
I ask that anyone that knows you please tell you that your work is ugly since I know you will not listen to me. You can do better Lawrence!
The cartoonist has sunk to an all time low. The far right uses free speech to assault people rather than inform.
How is this Racist???? You idiots call everything said about the Obamas racist. Oh you disagree with obama your a racist.....you all at msnbc are pathetic
I did look up the political comic depicting the Obamas. I did not find it to be racist at all. The issue of obesity that has been trumpeted by Michele Obama (a worthy focus by the way) has been compromised by the Obama's eating habits as documented in reports by various news outlets. The comic strip merely pokes at the fact of hypocrisy. Frankly, I don't get the racist charge by O'Donnell. What's more, I do not care about the personal hypocrisy of the Obama's on the issue...I am a hypocrite too. I know obesity is bad (my Wii makes me aware of that every morning). I still enjoy the food that is bad for me.
The big ears on the President are no different than the exaggerations of previous Presidents. I generally like O'Donnell and appreciate his counter balance to the extremely conservative press outlets, but this made me question his objectivity. Come on, the Obamas are big enough to handle this small stuff. Besides it does make you laugh...not at the Obamas but at ourselves on this particular issue.
The cartoon indicts itself and the cartoonist whether or not one agrees or disagrees with Obama.
That is one of the funniest things I've ever seen. The only racism in it is in your twisted left wing commie mind. Your show sucks the sweat off a dead man's balls. Get off the air comrad, you suck.
Wow, I thought there would be more comments here. What is the deal with these people? You don’t like the guy, that is fine but …dehumanize. Racialism disguised as journalism.
Lawrence you are really blowing this out of proportion. You are overly sensitive about this issue. I do not see how this is in any way a racist cartoon.
I do not believe in disrespecting the President of the United States or the First Lady. She is obviously trying to use her position to do something good in raising awareness about junk food and obesity.
I support her and her cause but you are really making a mountain out of a mole hill and I am tired of this country being so sensitive about everything. Ever since we became a PC society we have been on a downhill slide.
The fact that you mentioned it on air made me aware of the cartoon. I am a conservative, generally, but I am tired of both sides trying to paint the "other side" as Loons. I read a New York Times article this past Sunday and the author referred to President Bush as Mr. Bush. That is every bit as disrespectful as this.
Your ratings on MSNBC are low for a reason - There are very few in this country that support your views full time. The same reason that President Obama was unable to lead the country with his left of center views.
Take a chill pill and get over it.
Way to go Mr. O'Donnell. I just happened on your show by chance but will be a regular after this. Mr. Lash's family should be ashamed of such an unpatriotic mocking that was racist, ugly and just plain stupid. The Obama's are probably the most intelligent first couple in the White House ever and it pains me that some people can not see past the color of their skin to realize that!!!!
This is retarded
uuuhhhh....how is showing somone eating racist?? Listen larry you really need to calm down about this. No one died or is being threatend its just a little comic and you just gave them all the publicity they will ever need... you should really listen to common sense cause he has a really good point...I SERIOUSLY HOPE YOUR MOM IS READING THIS LARRY BECAUSE YOU NEED AN INTERVENTION, AND YOUR SCREAMING FOR HELP.LOL p.s. pass the bacon
I'm sorry but this is a little ridiculous. As a cartoonist, cartoon art fan, and cartooning teacher, I can tell you that the first thing taught to anyone about caricaturing is exaggeration of prominent facial features. You accuse the artist of making Obama look like an animal. I see exaggerated ears that any caricaturist worth his salt would use in cartooning the president. Have you forgotten about all the Bush caricatures with ears just as, if not more so, deformed than Obama's are in Lash's images? Have you forgotten Bush's nickname among the satirists (and others)? I'll remind you, it was "The Chimp."
I'm sorry but calling out cartoonists for their political work is in incredibly poor taste. Are you aware that there are political cartoonists in Europe and Scandinavia who are still in hiding to this day after angering Muslims with their images?
Underneath your rhetoric I couldn't help but catch the implication that this was racist in nature - how dare he depict a black man so outrageously? Well, honestly, to not depict him that way just because he is African-American would be much more offensive to me. If Obama can handle being the POTUS, surely he can handle the political caricaturing that every president suffers at the hands of cartoonists.
Honestly Mr. O'Donnell, I think President Obama, like you, should have much larger issues to contend with than how the cartoonists portray him.
Signed, A regular viewer and proud liberal.
I'm sorry there was a typo in my previous posting. It was meant to state, " I just happened to tune into your show". But Mr. O'Donnell I think you did a great job of calling these cartoonists out, and if I were a family member of either man I would be ashamed!
Dear Mr. O'Donnell
I also find the cartoon incredibly distasteful. For the younger set who doesn't remember history, the giant ears on the President are reminiscent of monkey ears, in the past black people were compared to apes and monkeys. The fat Michelle is racist because of the caricatures of fat, shrewish black women portrayed in media for the past 175 years. And today, it is the low income, low socio-economc black people who are portrayed as the best patrons of the fast food restaurants.
And the dialogue of this "cartoon" was even worse in it's original form. On the website on February 14, 2011 11:53 am ET by Simon Maloy states:
"if there's a "joke" in there, I'm missing it. Notably, the version of the cartoon online now differs slightly -- but significantly -- from the version that showed up in my RSS reader, in which the First Lady demands: "Shut up and pass the lard!" "
There is a lot of nastiness here and intentional degradation of a man we should all respect just because he is our President.
Amazing the preponderance of notes in opposition to the O'Donnell segment here. Just another gop overt racist caricature of the Obamas. The gop gets to enjoy the psychiatric diagnosis of Projection, once again, and place its racist hate upon the progressives then rail against it. Check your own DSM IV. Well, gop, once again, do not bother letting the facts invade your issues, and simply invent the facts you like as you go and simply deny anything said by a progressive person. But I lapse, the gop has no view beyond its diatribe blinders. Did I use too many big words here? Well, y'all really need a good collegiate (know what that is?) dictionary so we can use the same language. Perhaps y'all slept through the king george years like a Rip Van Winkle, remember him? 30 years of going to hell in a hand basket, and now y'all wake up. Good Morning Vietnam.
Wow. Larry sure went on forever about a subject for which he wouldn't offer any proof. Is anyone else getting tired of the "racist" charge being tossed around so carelessly? If interested, I suggest looking up this comic online and judging for yourself (something those at The Last Word should have done before airing). It's also easy enough to find lots of info about, and responses by both Lash and Hudnall. Go ahead. If you watch MSNBC at all, you're probably used to having to do most of the legwork yourself, right? By the way, if you see either of the two guys in question at the Starbucks, tell them to hang in there. They haven't done anything wrong.
The cartoon was unfunny and unfair, but I don't feel like the critique tonight was proportional to the offense.
I was totally cool with all criticism leveled at Hudnall and Lash until invoking their families and the tacit condoning of the audience's harassment of these individuals and their respective family. It's just not something with which I am comfortable.
I think it comes too close, albeit unintentionally, to encouraging people to do or say something irrational and irresponsible in response to this very distasteful and offensive political cartoon.
I've watched every Last Word and I very much respect Lawrence O'Donnell. But for the first time, I have become afraid that in a segment the show has approached dangerously close to the worst nature of Keith.
An otherwise great show tonight.
Signed, a loyal viewer.
Typical O'Donnell bully pulpit BS. They put GW in cowboy clothes all the time, should we try to make that out as racist? Perhaps Michele could give Palin a call for some advice on how to handle slanderous media. Lord know they've heaped it on that family while leaving the Obama's alone.
or Michele could apologize for her husband's "lipstick on a pig" comment about Palin...
Why did you have to mention Bash's wife by name? She is being inundated with hate mail. She didn't even draw it, and WHAT is racist about it? Absurd.
Funny, but I don't recall you, or any other liberals decrying this cartoon, drawn by two-time Pulitzer prize winner Muke Luckovich as racist: Google "George Bush
Cartoon ears" Is Mike Luckovich a racist Larry? If not, why not? Is one only a racist if the big ears are drawn on black presidents? You are a pathetic, hypocritical, sycophantic disgrace to your profession.
By the way, Larry old boy, it was Erin Burnett, on YOUR sister station, CNBC, who called George W. Bush a monkey ON AIR!! Is she a racist Larry? If not, why not?
You used to be laughable, now you're just a tragically sad man.
Are you willfully ignorant? or just intellectually dishonest?
Calling a white man a monkey (even one like George W. Bush with his little chimp ears and his funny facial expressions) has zero of the racial connotation than a person of African descent. The racial history of depicting African Americans as apes has a long and painful history and just does not apply to Whites.
That you're trying to base on argument on it just demonstrates you either don't know what you're talking about or you're desperately trying to play the victim card that so many right-wingers purport to hate. So which is it?
Gnome is forwarding the racist rant that white people can't be victims of racism.
@Hambone: please seek tutoring for your reading comprehension, it's rather poor. I never said that.
Perhaps you - like Bill - are so desperate to silence legitimate criticism that you have lowered yourself to fallacious accusations of racism in order to sidestep them? Methinks you have.
you're desperately trying to play the victim card that so many right-wingers purport to hate.
I take offense to that based on the common (and painfull) belief that right wingers are fat white guys.
Hint-Don't use color descriptors when arguing racial bias. In our radically PC society, it invalidates your point.
Well I for one am proud that the truth can finally be depicted and took going to a cartoonist for the world to see it. People of this country are becoming so guarded against their feelings because of the fear of being politically incorrect. Well I for one commend these two for what they have done. Also since this show refuses to give the publisher of this piece full credit for exhibition of what America needs to get back to I will let you all have the link so you to may enjoy. Also don't sit back and say "oh you are racist" because I will show you that you are racist. You sit there and attack me while hiding behind the fact that you voted for him because he was black come on his entire campaign was three words. So enjoy. I know that you will click the link increase traffic to this site, increase the popularity and also sit back in your chair and have a snicker in silent or under breath in public just due to the fact that you too know that it is funny.
journalism.com/hudlash/2011/02/13/obamanation-just-eat-it/
wouldn't post just put big before journalism after you copy and paste
So now we have a fathwa against the cartoonist. People are encouraged to contact his parents and grandparents? Come on!! Now the poor guy can't even buy coffee! It's okay to have free speech and freedom of the press as long as the message protected by that freedom doesn't offend O' Donnell . I tune in this show late at night to see what the other side is up to. Apparently we have a situation where Representative Weiner speaks for every intelligent person in the country; and O' Donnell calls down the wrath of the Liberal Elite at Starbucks! I gotta go change the channel now, Rachael Maddow is coming on and I don't want any of that leaking out onto my floors or fouling my air. I already know what HER side is up to! That's the great thing about freedom of the press; they can say what they want, write what they want, draw what they want - and I can change channels when I want to.