Is The New Yorker’s satirical cover on Obama not sufficiently over-the-top?
15 comments July 14th, 2008
 
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.
