Torn.
I said:
"So when I first saw this magazine cover this morning I let the initial shock wash over me and was ready to turn into one of those raging liberals, quick to jump to internet, type without thinking and shout silently for all like-minded individuals and [dissenters] to see.
Then I took a walk.
And I thought about it. Aside from the obvious jump in sales the New Yorker will probably see from such a "sensationalist" cover, I also think they are trying to get at the outrageous stories, labels, and sensationalistic zeal applied to both Barack, Michelle, his actions, her actions, his words, their peeps, etc. since this race got up and running. The only trouble is, I don't know if many people will stop to think about that. Many, like me at the outset, will remain testy and pissed, or roll their eyes and/or suck their teeth and look away. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not necessarily saying this cover is "the business" so to speak, just saying that I think I understand what they are coming from, despite the fact that I haven't read a lick of the accompanying article nor can I remember at the moment if the New Yorker is a left-leaning news magazine. [It is right? Again, I don't know. I'm a Vanity Fair man myself.]"
They say:
"Just in case you've missed it, the magazine's cover is a cartoon by veteran illustrator Barry Blitt depicting Sen. Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, in the Oval Office, presumably after his inauguration as president. The senator wears Islamic garb, including a turban, while the new first lady sports an Angela Davis-style Afro and has an AK-47 slung over her back. The couple bumps fists while an American flag burns in a fireplace whose mantel is topped by a portrait of Osama bin Laden.
Anyone with an ounce of wit and a passing acquaintance with what's been going on during this presidential campaign will recognize Blitt's illustration as a compendium of the various false and defamatory allegations about the Obamas that have been spread across the Internet in what amounts to the cyber-spatial equivalent of an old-fashioned whispering campaign: In this fanciful netherworld, the presumptive Democratic nominee is unpatriotic, a secret Muslim and an appeaser of terrorists, while his wife is an anti-American harridan whose college thesis advocated black supremacy.
New Yorker Editor David Remnick told the Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar that, in his view, the cartoon holds "up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about Barack Obama's -- both Obamas' -- past, and their politics. ... The fact is, it's not a satire about Obama -- it's a satire about the distortions and misconceptions and prejudices about Obama."
Obvious as all that may be, it didn't prevent a panoply of grim-faced pundits from parading across the cable news channels solemnly pronouncing the cover either offensive or unfunny. Whatever it is that makes CNN's commentators "the best political team on television," it certainly isn't a sense of humor...
It's interesting that this controversy -- which drew in both Obama and John McCain -- should have arisen in what's a kind of golden age for televised political satire. Still, in an interview with the New York Times, Comedy Central's Jon Stewart -- who is as sharp a political satirist as any now working -- said that jokes involving Obama often seem to fall flat with his audience. "People have a tendency to react as far as their ideology allows them," he said by way of explanation...Maybe we're not so much a humorless or overly sensitive people as we are a trivial one."
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