You should know by 11:30 this afternoon whether Reverend Al Sharpton plans on going through with his City Hall protest of the New York Post chimp cartoon, despite the fact the Grinch himself has descended from above and offered a mostly-sincere apology for the work. Nowhere in his "forgive us if you were offended" routine however, does Murdoch mention the snarky Op-Ed "apology" that came from his editor Col Allan last week and managed to rile up more anger from the NAACP than there was before, if that is humanly possible.

Says Murdoch:

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.

Al Sharpton's spokesperson calls this apology "unprecedented," which is probably true for a man who honestly believe there is no such thing as bad press.