(Robert Jonathan, Headline USA) A corporate news media outlet in Iowa that seeks to “share diverse ideas” has issued a formal apology for an “inexcusable” racist cartoon that attempted to disparage GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and the MAGA cohort.
In an approximately 200-word mea culpa, Quad-City Times executive editor Tom Martin insisted that “racist and hateful ideas, word or images have no place in our publications,” at the same time admitting that somehow the offensive carton “slipped through” the editorial process and wound up getting published on the editorial page.
The distasteful sketch, which depicts Ramaswamy delivering a speech to his Iowa MAGA slur-spewing “friends,” was apparently also published in the Dispatch-Argus sister paper.
Martin’s apology, which for some reason comes with an extra-large picture of himself, explained that the news organization deleted the offensive imagery from its online editions and that it will no longer do business with the cartoonist.
“The cartoon, while intended to criticize racist ideas and epithets, uses a phrase that is racist and insensitive to members of our Indian American community,” Martin wrote in what might perhaps be a form of unintended irony.
“The oversight that allowed it to run is inexcusable, and we can and will do better. We are sorry,” Martin concluded in the apology to Ramaswamy, the Indian-American community, and readers in general.
No mention was made, however, about an apology specifically for the way the cartoon demonized without evidence (to borrow a left-wing media term) the conservative/populist MAGA contingent.
Ramaswamy, who –if he become POTUS — has vowed to pardon former President Trump in the event of a federal conviction, previously shared the offensive material, which seems, in part, to be a lame callback to the Obama presidency, on Twitter.
“It’s sad that this is how the [mainstream media] views Republicans. I’ve met with grassroots conservatives across America & never *once* experienced the kind of bigotry that I regularly see from the Left. Iowa’s @qctimes absolutely has the right to print this, but it’s still shameful,” the pro-free speech entrepreneur and American First 2.0 advocate wrote.
It’s sad that this is how the MSM views Republicans. I’ve met with grassroots conservatives across America & never *once* experienced the kind of bigotry that I regularly see from the Left. Iowa’s @qctimes absolutely has the right to print this, but it’s still shameful. pic.twitter.com/5QNwGSJgJb
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) June 22, 2023
The social media attention may have prompted the apology.
“Vivek Ramaswamy is a Hindu, not a Muslim. And, even if he was a Muslim, so what? In America, we celebrate religious freedom. It is conservative groups that do so most fervently,” Hot Air columnist Karen Townsend observed.
“Republican primary voters who are listening to Vivek are not the ones screaming slurs at him. That would be Democrats,” she added.
The late New York City talk show host Bob Grant, who pioneered conservative radio before it was cool and before syndication — let alone streaming — was a thing, often opined that when it comes to matters of race, liberals are the ultimate hypocrites.
