Mike Bloomberg is investing #100 million in Florida on behalf of Joe Biden:
There’s not much you can’t buy for $100 million. A private jet. Your own island. The 2020 payrolls of both the Miami Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays, with enough left over for Derek Jeter’s Davis Islands home.
What about a swing state? Florida is about to find out.
The immediate reaction likened the windfall to Biden winning the lottery. (Better actually. This week’s Powerball jackpot is estimated at $94 million.)
That news brought about an editorial cartoon by Joey Weatherford.
(sorry for the fuzzy image, the cartoon has virtually disappeared from the internet)
Which in turn brought about apologies from a couple newspapers that ran the cartoon.
On Saturday, FLORIDA TODAY made a terrible mistake by running an inappropriate editorial cartoon depicting former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is Jewish, rubbing his hands together over bags of money. It without doubt drew on Anti-Semitic images and stereotypes dating back centuries. These were historically meant to stir hatred and intolerance. It had no place on the pages of FLORIDA TODAY and we are deeply sorry.
On Monday, the Tallahassee Democrat ran a syndicated editorial cartoon that was offensive to readers. It showed former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg in a way that some rightly said drew on stereotypes of Jewish people.
It was a mistake and we apologize.
Our editorial page editor, who is Jewish, selected the cartoon and it was reviewed by another editor, but that clearly wasn’t enough.
edited to add –
The Tallahassee Democrat has taken decisive action to prevent such an incident from happening again:
We are eliminating this cartoonist from our syndicated roster.
The two editors who picked and approved the cartoon remain on staff.
Of course, earlier this year Bloomberg’s freewheeling spending on his presidential campaign was the subject of many editorial cartoons, even at least one by Joey Weatherford.
I don’t recall objections to those cartoons.
There’s also the fact that, in drawing a Jewish stereotype, it doesn’t actually look like Michael Bloomberg.
The hand gesture in both cartoons reminds me of Mr. Burns on “The Simpsons” tenting his fingers and saying “Exxxxcellent!” I see no anti-Jewish element here. The stereotype that I’m more disturbed by is the idea that rich people are automatically evil.
Yep. You’d think a professional caricaturist would know how to caricature, but this doesn’t look like Bloomberg. It’s intentional.