Speaking on "The Last Word", on Tuesday, in the section called "Rewrite", Lawrence O'Donnell called a cartoon of Michelle and Barack Obama a 'racist obscenity'. The host went on to say that the cartoonist involved needed an intervention.

The cartoon depicts an overweight Michelle Obama eating hamburgers while telling President Obama about her campaign to promote healthy eating in the U.S. Obama is depicted with impossibly large ears. His speech bubble says her campaign is going to hurt his re-election chances. In the next image Michelle yells "Shut up and pass the bacon!"

The images were released on Andrew Breitbart's Big Government website last weekend.

On the show O'Donnell only showed one panel of the cartoon saying he would not show it in its entirety "because it is a racist obscenity".

O'Donnell described the cartoon of Obama as "a half man, half animal form, with ears that don't exist in the homo-sapien species."

He commented on cartoons during the 19th and 20th century which "succeeded in making people like the Irish look like dangerous animals."