OK, I added that last part about the begging for mercy. But you and I know that if we had not risen up against hatred in such a strong visible way, i.e. taking to the streets, raising our voices, sending in tens of thousands of emails, and talking about boycotts — shoot, you KNOW we wouldn’t be seeing the man himself come down from the mountain to say this:

As the Chairman of the New York Post, I am ultimately responsible for what is printed in its pages. The buck stops with me.

Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted.

Over the past couple of days, I have spoken to a number of people and I now better understand the hurt this cartoon has caused. At the same time, I have had conversations with Post editors about the situation and I can assure you – without a doubt – that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation. It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such.

We all hold the readers of the New York Post in high regard and I promise you that we will seek to be more attuned to the sensitivities of our community.

If I had time, I’d deconstruct this apology line by line, but let’s just say that crotchedy old ultra-conservative Rupert appears to have gotten our message and maybe some calls from pissed off black people he actually knows. Good for them. This is a much more appropriate apology than their first back-handed and defiant attempt. I don’t expect them to admit to their threatening and dehumanizing racism: people rarely do so. I do expect them to apologize for it and do better — so I appreciate the last sentence greatly. Though the subtext is clear — black people: please stop the protests, calls, emails. We hear you.

VICTORY! Nice work, y’all. Murdoch is one of the most powerful men in global business so this is actually a big deal. This is how we need to have Obama’s back. Especially when it comes to Murdoch and his News Corp misinformation machines like the New York Post and Fox News. Just in case you were thinking that we were thinking about softening up on News Corp, let’s take a look back how “Fox Attacks Black America” from Election 2008. So Rupert, FYI, being more attuned to the sensitivities of the community would mean less hate-spewing a la the Chimp Cartoon and this:

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