Is The New Yorker’s satirical cover on Obama not sufficiently over-the-top?
July 14th, 2008 at 09:13am Pat Cunningham
There’s a big political FIRESTORM this morning over the drawing on the cover of this week’s edition of The New Yorker, which depicts Barack and Michelle Obama as armed terrorists bumping fists in the Oval Office of the White House while an American flag burns in the fireplace and a portrait of Osama bin Laden adorns the wall.
The magazine defends the portrayal as a satire on the kind of nonsense widely peddled by demented Obamaphobes.
I, too, have satirized such creatures, but I’ve employed headlines and rhetoric so far-fetched that even the terminally gullible couldn’t fail to miss the point. My favorite: “Obama fathers two-headed gay terrorist baby.”
I wonder if The New Yorker cover doesn’t quite go far enough. I mean, there are a lot of really stupid people out there, folks. Granted, few of them have ever really read The New Yorker, but still…
On the other hand, I also wonder if the big flap over this episode might eventually redound to Obama’s benefit by engendering sympathy for him.
On the third hand (yes, I have three), the whole thing might quickly blow over with no lasting effects as other political controversies come along.
UPDATE: THIS GUY takes the matter rather seriously. Read the whole piece (4 pages); he raises some interesting points.
Entry Filed under: The New Yorker, Michelle Obama, Barack Obama
15 Comments Add your own
1. Menlo Bob | July 14th, 2008 at 9:41 am
Geez, lighten up. It’s just one of your lefty publications having a little fun. They do it every week.
2. Mike Carroll | July 14th, 2008 at 10:19 am
Much ado about very little.
3. Echo4Charlie | July 14th, 2008 at 11:00 am
There could be some truth to this caricature. I don\’t feel that Senator Obama is entirely forthcoming with the US citizens.
4. Pat Cunningham | July 14th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
OK, Charlie, about precisely which part of the caricature might there be some truth? And your evidence?
5. Milton Waddams | July 14th, 2008 at 2:33 pm
I’d like to know where the whole fist bump is a terrorist thing came from… I guess my friends and I are all terrorists.
6. Pat Cunningham | July 14th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Milton: It came from E.D. Hill, one of the airheads on Fox News who was hired more for her looks than for her gray matter. Check it out here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3plZq0p9L18&feature=related
7. Menlo Bob | July 14th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
One thing we know for sure; More people will suspect the Obamas are Muslim radicals from viewing this in the news than any source promoting the idea in the first place or in reading The New Yorker. I’m surprised no one was outraged by this Obama cover. (nudity alert)
8. gowader | July 14th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Bob: I do think the article is just for fun. But look how Obama is reacting to it. Maybe he is a little afraid of the implications of it? After all he cannot pretend he does not sympathize with the radicals who are fighting the same culture he is. Only a blind man could not see an agenda here. Because all politicans have them.
9. Pat Cunningham | July 14th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Wade: What the hell does this mean?: “After all he cannot pretend he does not sympathize with the radicals who are fighting the same culture he is.” For the life of me, I can’t figure out what you’re trying to say. Explain yourself. What culture is Obama fighting?
10. Q Jordon | July 14th, 2008 at 9:02 pm
To someone like myself, I understand parody, but to those that watch Faux News, they still believe Obama has Islamic roots that might translate into him giving a sympathetic look toward radicals within the fundamentalist circle.
But then again, I did state the Faux News viewers that need Crayola Crayons to express themselves without going outside their preconceived box of notions and ideas.
And that is at the gist of this cover, those that do not understand parodies. And from what I can see on this blog, we have a few.
11. Milton Waddams | July 15th, 2008 at 9:13 am
You also have to remember that 60+% of Americans thought that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were responsible for the 9/11. I can understand why some would be worried that these same masses might see this cover and its coverage and assume the Obama is really a Muslim terrorist after all.
12. gowader | July 15th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Pat: What culture are we talking about? The culture that clings to their guns and religion for starters. Or God forbid the culture that promotes conservative ideals that go againt mainstream liberals like Obama himself.
13. Q Jordon | July 15th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Milton, your point is taken. I would venture to say it is the same crowd that uses Crayola Crayons.
To illustrate my point, I have recently seen a video where Matt Groening, the Simpson’s creator, talks about how the network asked him to stop putting ticker tape news stories below the news caster on the Simpsons.
It appeared that people were calling in about the ticker news tape, and complaining to FOX about it. You see seventy-seven percent of the viewers that called in thought the cartoon ticker tape news was “REAL”.
Pass out another Crayon, we have them hooked.
14. Harley Lowrider | July 16th, 2008 at 9:21 am
I see Pat is still trying to become a reporter Huh !!!
Have`nt made it yet have you ?
15. Pat Cunningham | July 16th, 2008 at 9:53 am
No, but I’m doing better than you on punctuation.
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