I guess I understand why the Obama campaign does not like the New Yorker cover, but to be honest, it looks like the kind of stuff you see in political cartoons everywhere always. They were just poking fun at all the BS that the email smears have been spreading, but I guess if you have never actually received those emails, then it might not make sense.
And as someone who is hardly on the fence regarding the Obama campaign, I just don’t see what the big deal is though. It was clear what they are doing, and they aren’t, you know, the folks actually spreading this kind of garbage. And again, it is kind of run of the mill stuff for political cartoons, and if I had seen the cover before I had seen everyone’s reaction at memeorandum, I would have predicted that liberals and Democrats would have gotten the joke and approved of it.
By the way- has anyone discussed the actual content inside the magazine?
*** Update ***
Is there anything fundamentally different about this Obama cover that would make reactions different from the ones they had about, say, the infamous Danish Allah Muhammed cartoons? Just asking if people feel differently about the two, and why?
Errantly had Allah there- shows you how much attention I paid to that.
Conservatively Liberal
I can see their objection, and I can see the point that The New Yorker is trying to make. Personally, I have mixed feelings about it, but I do find it funny in the sense that the right is ready and willing to run with the picture as if it is a fact.
That in itself is pretty sad.
In one sense, I guess I object to the fact that the left has a lousy sense of humor in objecting to something like this. But if it was on the cover of a right wing rag, it would be screamed about endlessly by the left.
One of the reasons I left the democratic party was because of the militant political correctness and inability of the left to laugh off stupid shit.
This gets a big ‘meh’ from me, and if the right runs with it like it is fact then I have something else to laugh at them about.
harlana pepper
The reading I have done thus far on this suggests that the right will latch onto this like a tick on a hound dog. It makes sense, given that irony is completely wasted on this group.
And don’t expect many on the left to be too impressed with this caricaturization either, of course.
Naturally, I think it’s funny as hell for obvious reasons. But again, irony just confuses the right, which could be the larger point, here. Mebbe I need to move to NY.
Napoleon
Am I alone in thinking that in a way it actually helps him? Whether they like it or not the rumors are out there and all the New Yorker cover does is hold them up to ridicule. It seems to me it is effective in dispelling the rumors in the same way Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert demolish right wing talking points with ridicule.
(by the way, I understand why the campaign needs to complain about the cover, but you got to wonder if they really mind).
Helena Montana
No longer a big, huge fan of the Obama campaign, but I see quite clearly why they’re upset. The expression “A picture is worth a thousand words” has a lot of validity. The fact of the matter is, most people won’t read the article. Most people will walk past a newstand or a magazine rack in an airport or drugstore and the picture will register subliminally. There is nothing on the cover to provide context, as I recall, so they’ll just remember the cartoon as a stand-alone. Or they’ll see it on the “news”(as I already have several times this morning) again, with no context provided, other than that the Obama people are freaking about it.
I think they have every right to be disturbed.
harlana pepper
Some substance.
Conservatively Liberal
Helena, there is usually no correlation between the New Yorker cover and the articles in it. Their cover is meant as a stand alone statement using an artists rendering of a current event. I have to agree with Napoleon in that I can see why the Obama campaign has to complain, and I don’t think the cover really hurts Obama. It is a caricature of Obama, as fed by the right. That they would embrace this ‘statement’ by the New Yorker is pure irony.
What I find funny is that the New Yorker is looked at as an ‘elitist’ left wing magazine, and the elites are having a laugh at the expense of the right and they are doing it using their candidate. This is one twisted up election, that is for damn sure.
But I do have to say that the cover is pretty damn funny, and it probably gives the wingnuts nightmares seeing it. Good.
Napoleon
Kevin Drum has.
Fargus
John,
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that if you never received those e-mails (or aren’t steeped in political minutiae like all of us are), then the cover might not make sense. How many average Americans do you think heard Fox News’ “terrorist fist jab” epithet, and of those, how many do you think still remember it?
I think that the picture is funny, but I think it would have been better suited to go inside the magazine, as a splash page within the context of the article, with a caption giving it some context (“How FOX News views the Obamas”). The objection, I think, is that it’s the cover, and that it’s absent any context for those who don’t already know it.
John Cole
How many people read the New Yorker? If I remember correctly, it is less than a million, and the vast majority of them will “get” the cover.
Fargus
To be sure, I don’t think it’s got a big circulation. But as some have pointed out, it’s probably got a much wider population who walks by the newsstand and sees it.
But maybe it’ll provoke some of those who don’t read it regularly to actually pick it up and read about Obama. Who knows? Generally, though, I think that the people who are inclined to believe that garbage already believe it and don’t need any reason to back up those beliefs.
Helena Montana
I understand that. But the image is what’s going to remain in most people’s heads. It just reinforces the messages that the right has been floating since the beginning of the primaries. Joe Six Pack doesn’t do satire and irony.
Stuart Eugene Thiel
Hear, hear! It’s just a political cartoon. The scary thing is that apparently we Lefties now have an Outrage Machine to rival that of the Righties.
Here’s Kevin Drum (who panders to the Outrage Machine regarding the cover) on the content of the article:
HRA
The word satire brings back a personal memory. In my English I class we were asked to write a satirical poem. I chose to write one about a class performance we had by a local actor who portrayed Lady MacBeth. TG I did not name him in my poem. I was asked to wait after class and I was questioned about it. Yes, I lied. I needed the A+.
Even those we peg as elitists do not get or welcome satire.
As for the magazine using it, their sales must be down low. I see it as an attempt to bring them up out of the cellar.
BTW, the McCain campaign did say they did not like it either.
Jake
Let me go out on a limb here and suggest that the folks who think Obama might be a muslim/terrorist are not going to have those concerns allayed by that cover. We are not talking about people who can spell “satire”, much less recognize it.
This cover will generate a lot of press, and I don’t think the majority of it will be good for Obama. Why? Because it’s going to be the usual-MSM-superficial type of coverage, where all we’ll see is the cover. Very little to no context will be provided.
Either the editors of the New Yorker are complete idiots or marketing geniuses, I’m not sure. Either way, NOBODY’s going to be discussing what is a very interesting article on the inside of the mag.
cd6
The best/worst part is that while it was done to “satirize” common rumors about Obama, when this cover is discussed on right wing blogs the most common comment is “that’s exactly what he looks like!”
The New Yorker may see higher than average sales for this issue as wingnuts are buying them up just so they can frame the front cover in their den.
aarrgghh
it’s the limbaugh-hannity ditto-head fantasy nightmare:
Geeno
Hmm. Lefties are justified in being a little gun shy. How many times have we joked at our own expense only to have the right and the dutiful media flog it as “truth”/”a synedoche”/”representative of what EVEN the left thinks” until the cows come home. It does wear down your sense of humor after a while.
cleek
“…even the liberal New Yorker…”
Geeno
Cleek – you’re a mind reader.
Scott H
The New Yorker cover is brilliant (by recent standards). The times we live in are Teh Stoopid.
The idea that a magazine cover is objectionable because of what some notional oppositional scabs might make of it is sad. People ought to be cheering.
bmc
Hey, it’s just a SPOOF! You love those. Doesn’t the Obama campaign get it? It’s funny! Like those HO jokes from Bernie Mac were funny!
“Just messin’ with you, man!”
the whacker
What Helena Montana said @6:50.
Max B.
first, i think they’re anticipating the fact that images such as that one will be circulating far more frequently come october, and it’s easier simply to condemn all then pick-‘n’-choose; they don’t want to get into a fight over why it’s ok for some publications to publish an image like that and not others. plus, as john’s final comment suggests, by making the controversy about the cover, the obama campaign can gobble up enough of the news cycle to make everyone forget about the story. for a brief time last night, the top story at halperin’s page was the part of lizza’s story where obama allegededly threatened to kick a fellow state legislator’s ass. yet that vanished when the obama campaign fired back at the cover and not the article. so:
a) they prep the media to view any image, even from “friendly” quarters, unfavorable to obama in certain ways (racial, religious, patriotic, etc) simply off-bounds.
b) they get to start a fight with the new yorker, and put symbolic but not substantive distance between themselves and a bastion of old-guard liberalism.
c) they put the mccain campaign in an awkward and impotent position; they really don’t have anything to do say or do, but if they do or say nothing they’ll be completely ignored for a day or two during a time when they’re trying to “refocus” the campaign and tighten the message.
d) everyone ignores the article about what an ambitious and ruthless political operator barack obama is!
so, in short, brilliant tactical politics.
Geeno
True on one level, but watching a couple close elections go south after the “notional oppositional scabs” have done their part more than once during the election cycle makes one a tad sensitive.
“Gore invented the internet” was a joke started on the left, afterall. On the whole, I would’ve forgone the 30 second chuckle if it would’ve prevented the last eight years.
BTW – cheering about what?
jon
Those Danish cartoons were of Muhammed, not Allah. If they were of Allah, it would have been an absurd spectacle of a much higher magnitude.
The Moar You Know
To paraphrase, when I see the cover of the New Yorker, I reach for my Mossberg.
Absent my Mossberg, it usually just leads me to think a lot less of whoever I’m visiting – lord knows I don’t allow that shit magazine in my home. The magazine is not funny, witty, educational, or even elitist – it is nothing more than fail layered on fail, topped with fail on top.
Here, the New Yorker has been the agent for doing what the left is best at – unloading a fuisillade directly into our own feet.
“Even the New Yorker…”
Get ready for it, folks. We’re gonna be hearing a lot of that in the next few weeks.
Jake
Sully’s got a post up from a reader, noting that a cartoon of Obama picking watermelons in the WH garden would have been satire too. Not all satire is created equal.
malraux
Other than being an exact image of what the right wing believes, I don’t see the funny. Satire should be a more extreme version of the views in question, not just a good description. In addition, there’s no context to identify the right wing as having this view. If it were a dream bubble coming up from Rush, Beck, etc, then maybe it would count as satire. But just as the voice of the New Yorker, it comes across as wingnutty, not satirical of wing nuts. Essentially Poe’s law means that its almost impossible to actually satirize the right wing.
asl
Obama should publicly ‘denounce’ the cover, but it’s of no damage. It’s a small circulation magazine with a liberal, high-information audience and the racist right have inspired cartoons much more insidious and ghoulish.
John S.
Like most of the MSM, the only reason for this cover to exist is to generate traffic/eyeballs/money.
Nothing sells like controversy – even if it’s manufactured.
DougJ
I don’t think the cover merits a Fatwa, obviously, but I think it does merit my canceling my subscription. I would feel differently if Lizza’s piece had been less of a hit piece and if the magazine hadn’t been taken over by neoconservatives. You think I’m joking about neoconservatives but would you call Goldberg and Packer?
Liz
Yeah, it’s satire. Tacky and offensive satire. Both are correct, at least in my eyes. I don’t blame him one teeny bit for being offended. It’s designed to shock and make people pick up the magazine…a visual Howard Stern moment.
Scott H
That every bit of cultural expression in this country hasn’t been boiled down to the gray, bland gruel of the lowest common denominator?
iluvsummr
Still think this is a shrewd marketing decision on the New Yorker’s part for that particular issue. Still not renewing my subscription (have too many unread copies of the New Yorker lying on the floor). The last one that got my attention was Barack and Hillary in bed reaching for the phone (3 a.m. call). The one of Ahmadinejad in the bathroom stall being solicited (a la Larry Craig) still makes me laugh out loud when I think of it.
RSA
Am I missing something in this comparison? Response to the Danish cartoons resulted in over a hundred deaths due to protests. I don’t expect that kind of reaction in this case.
gussie
I keep searching for ‘polite and inoffensive’ satire; haven’t found any that’s any good, yet.
The issue here is fear. Some on the left, for good reason, are terrified that even as obvious a satire as this will be seized upon by the Forces of Fuckwittery, and even more terrified that it’ll be used to score real political points, to the great detriment of the country.
And that’s a terrifying thought. That our country is so debased that a) people won’t see this as satire and b) will actually make political decisions based on the outrageous exaggerations.
Still, I suppose I’m more hopeful than they are. Maybe naive.
Robert Murdoch
Let them know what you think:
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Genine
I, personally, don’t see a problem with the cover. I see what the New Yorker was trying to do, maybe they could have done it better. But its on the stands now.
I think that’s the problem in a nutshell. We’ve become scared of stupid people. Stupid people have us quaking in our boots. Its truly a sad state of affairs.
But I believe that is changing. With blogs, YouTube and other avenues of getting information on one’s own, people are becoming better informed and I think that trend will continue.
I can see why people are upset about the cover, and I can understand Obama’s campaign wanting to respond to it. I also agree that the cover won’t change much. Some silly enough to believe the outrageous lies about Obama will continue to do so and those that don’t- won’t. But the time will come when stupid people will no longer have control of our lives.
flyerhawk
I am not outraged by it but I can certainly see why the Obama campaign got upset about it. I don’t find it terribly funny either. Not offensive but not really funny. Then again I often find myself scratching my head at New Yorker humor.
Image control is critical for a Presidential nominee. Even if this was satire the Obama campaign needs to make it clear that they don’t like the imagery.
Geeno
Oh — never addressed the Allah cartoons. The only thing I found offensive was the deliberation behind them. If they had gathered Allah cartoons from other publications and reprinted them, that would’ve been one thing, but they held a contest to see could offend muslims worst. The cartoons themselves were probably the least offensive part of that whole circus.
aarrgghh
holey moley, i never thought this day would come — at long last, i’ve escaped moderation!
thanks john and tim!
RSA
I think the cover steps over the line, but that’s just my personal view. I’d have the same reaction, I think, if, say, they’d shown John McCain’s face on top of Lyndie England’s body in one of the Abu Ghraib photos, or on Slim Pickens’s body riding the bomb in “Dr. Strangelove” down to a map of Iran, for example, and those images would at least be consistent with things that McCain has said.
redjellydonut
The threat to the Obama campaign of the cover seems to me to be the lack of context. The audience of the cover isn’t just the readers of The New Yorker (a miniscule audience indeed) but all the folks who will see the cover without a supporting narrative to give it that crucial context.
Satire is mostly wasted on people who have neither the time nor the inclination to be receptive to it. Those people aren’t necessarily stupid, but they are certainly ignorant, and that doesn’t make them bad people. The old saw “A picture is worth a thousand words” exists because it’s true. If you didn’t know where the image of Michelle Obama as Angela Davis and Barack as Osama came from (A self-consciously pretentious Upper East Side elitist weekly) and saw it without the title, you’d just as easily imagine it came from the Jewish World Review or The Weekly Standard. My point is that the cover isn’t satirical in and of itself, but only in relation to the magazine that published it. The image by itself is simply offensive, and the Obamas and their campaign are right to be insulted.
The fact that the publishers of TNY didn’t anticipate that the image would be appropriated by forces that seek to reinforce the image of Obama as terrorist-traitor highlights both their contempt for their audience and their lack of cultural insight.
Darkness
I thought the New Yorker cover of Obama and Hillary in bed together was better.
As a regular New Yorker reader, I get the sense their covers are meant to reflect the state of thinking of the country, or New York in an ambiguous way. In the context of all covers, there is less meanness in the fist bumping one, it shows not necessarily how they are but how they are perceived and their figures are drawn sympathetically, I think.
grandpajohn
Anyone here besides me remember 4 years ago and the first swift boat ads? remember how we enlightened souls all laughed at such silliness and remarked how no one could possibly believe the stupid shit those ads contained? remember how they cost Kerry the election because the stupid people of this country DID believe the stupid shit in those ads?
and yes it is a sad commentary about our country when our elections are continually determined by the stupid people
ThymeZone
The problem with TNY is that they don’t caption their covers, and without a caption, the meaning of this is ambiguous, especially to the vast majority of people who are not familiar with the publication and its culture.
It’s therefore inflammatory and represents pretty bad judgment AFAIC.
Lab2112
At last, even the elitist New Yorker magazine recognizes the fundamental truth of Barry Obama and his America-hating wife. I absolutely agree with John Cole — this should be no big deal at all, because it’s what most other people who love America already know about these traitorous, terrorist Black muslim jihadists.
nightjar
Just watched a piece on MSNBC, with the image being front and center, and of course shortly followed by an Obama flip-flop polooza with gooper Joe Watkins explaining why Mccain doesn’t flip-flop, he being the Spartan Warrior against the Status Quo and all. His dem (concern troll) counterpart a Todd something or other, wailing on about his concern that Obama had better knock off his shifty campaigning and become more like straight shooting Mccain. Another day, another episode of our so-called liberal press.
The Moar You Know
Fail, Rush fan. It’s always supposed to be “Barack Hussein Osama”, emphasis, of course, on the middle name. Hang your head in shame and vow to troll better next time.
nitpicker
It’s official. Jonah Goldberg says:
Scott H
The idea that the caricature should have been in a Lush Rambo thought balloon or that it ought to have been captioned (for whom? the cognitively impaired?) is… forget it. What exactly, prithee, is satire that doesn’t cross the line?
Milquetoasts, mind the lines; everybody else, prepare to charge them.
Whispers
The question is not whether the New Yorker should fear ‘crossing the line’, but rather whether they understand that satire has to be recognizable as satire. This cover artwork fails as satire.
HRA
Ryan Lizza who wrote the article in TNY that has been almost totally ignored because of the cover was on Hardball tonight. He was not a happy looking man as he usually is in his appearances. He defended the cover. There was only a blip about his article all night so far. All I got was Obama is a typical Chicago politician from the blip.
What would have been even better than a caption IMHO is an article on the story behind the cover. The 5 Ws of journalism – who, what when, where, why could have saved us all from the upheaval over it.
Neo
So what are the chances that this story by Andy Martin, saying Obama’s mom and dad never married, being true ?
Or is this just more New Yorker satire ?
Chris Andersen
Re: Danish Muhammed Cartoons vs. The New Yorker Cover
Chris Andersen
(arg. Hit the return key to soon)
Re: Danish Muhammed Cartoons vs. The New Yorker Cover
Big difference: no one has threatened to kill the creators of the latter.
Really, this comes down to a simple matter: if you have to explain the joke then it is bad satire and bad satire on a topic this sensitive just compounds the problem. So its a bad joke that was poorly executed.