Comic causes debate: Is it racist?

On Saturday, regular contributors to Andrew Breitbart's Big sites, James Hudnall and Batton Lash posted the latest comic in their ObamaNation series of political cartoons. The full cartoon can be seen by clicking the picture link on this page or at Mr. Hudnall's site.

Hudnall and Lash have been producing this comic for several months now, seemingly in the tradition of political cartooning, though clearly with a quite right-wing bent.

That led to a segment on MSNBC's Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell in which O'Donnell labels said cartoon racist and sets out on what can only be a five minute dressing down of both Hudnall and Lash. He goes as far as to call for an intervention of both individuals. He asks for family members (including naming Lash's wife Jackie Estrada) to convince them to stop. He gives out the creators' home cities and encourages everyone to contact them about the situation.

The full video is available to the left.

Some commentators have went so far as to call it an incitement to harassment. One look at some of the responses to the comic come close to showing that in response.

James Hudnall has released a series of responses on his blogs about this situation, which he seems to consider more surprising than anything else. Check them out here, here, here and here.

Clearly this story shows that comics still have the ability to cause a public discourse in the current political climate.

But is it racist?

The art features a slightly overweight Michelle Obama eating large amounts of food and a big-eared Obama. Mr. O'Donnell seems to frame these two concepts as the weight of his racist argument. He sees a caricature of "the black person eating chicken and watermelon" (though she's eating hamburgers here) with Mrs. Obama. For Obama, an image he wouldn't even show a picture of on the show, he calls the caricature has animalistic imagery, a sign of racist cartooning of old.

Of course, any number of political cartoonists have also pictured the current President with comically large ears. Political cartooning has a history of exagerrating Presidential features. As Mr. Lash states in his defense, "Cartooning—specifically political cartooning– has always been about exaggeration, whether it was Nixon’s prominent jowls, Carter’s toothy smile, or Bush ll’s beady eyes."

Hundreds have weighed in on this topic already, even as the creators have received death threats both by phone and email.

So, let's open this up to the debate for all the people of Eastern Iowa and all the Examiner readers around the world

Do you think the comic is racist? Post your opinions in the comments thread below.