Nice going New Yorker. We have a very large number of people who actually believe all the smears that have floated around about Obama during this election season. So what does The New Yorker decide to do? Put them all together in a cover, as a satire, to sell copies for a very serious article. I think that the cover will only be used to further enhance those fallacies. How would the right react with a NYer graphic of McCain screaming at his first wife while she signs the divorce papers—one arm is behind his back—he’s handing Cindy a box of chocolate candies as she kicks over a bag full of cash that’s marked Beer money while a Keating jet is parked outside the window. Well those are mostly true…
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The New Yorker cover could have worked if had made more clear who it was satirizing (Fox news, the Republican party, Rush Limbaugh, whatever), or by being clever enough to provide the actual funny. As it is it’s just a reflection of the Right’s view of Obama, but there’s nothing clever or funny about it. The cartoon could run as is on the cover of the National Review, also meaning to be “funny” but with a different target.
All of this doesn’t make the New Yorker public enemy #1, just makes them idiots of the week….and the Doughy Pantload says:
- What I find interesting about the New Yorker cover is that it’s almost exactly the sort of cover you could expect to find on the front of National Review.
Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton:
“The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”
Artist Barry Blitt defends the cover, saying that “It seemed to me that depicting the concept would show it as the fear-mongering ridiculousness that it is.”
Kurtz’s Reliable Sources touched on the graphic for a few minutes.
No Trackbacks To “The New Yorker’s Offensive Obama Cover“
Too clever by half.
Funny toon.
Hey, I say let’s put the spotlight on all the absurd hate-mongering that right-wing talk radio and the like thrive on! That’s exactly what The New Yorker is doing here! No better way to pull the troglodytes out of their caves and into the sun! (Apologies to genuine troglodytes!) (Disclaimer: I am a long-time New Yorker subscriber!)
Nice going, New Yorker. If you would get your noses out of NYC, you would realize that, unfortunately, most of the country BELIEVE this is what the Obamas are really like. Nice going confirming their stereotype. Idiots.
I’m a longtime New Yorker subscriber and an Obama supporter. I think the cover is great satire, very much in keeping with other work by the same artist. I can see how it might come off to people who aren’t regular readers of the magazine, though.
Fight bad satire with good humor. Push back against the New Yorker by entering a cartoon caption contest here.
“All of this doesn’t make the New Yorker public enemy #1, just makes them idiots of the week….”
make that useful idiots of the week.
i’d cancel my subscription if i had one.
*
Rule #1 - DON’T FEED THE BEAST
If you’re going to fight pornography, don’t put it on the cover. If you’re going to fight ‘violence’ don’t show a gratuitiously violent image. If you’re going to fight racial intolerance - don’t create images to support it.
DON’T. FEED. THE. BEAST.
Idiots.
I’m a little worried about the liberals who think this is great satire; they are surely the kind of people who mearly tolerate the rest of the unclever world.
Beyond that, I have my doubts about the New Yorker actually believing this would be largely taken as satire. Could they really be that elitist?
As soon as I saw this artist’s other works, I recognized what it was exactly. It is indeed a spoof of the distorted conservative lies about Obama. I don’t see this as a problem at all.
Perhaps the artist could have placed a title under it claiming “Through a Right Winger’s Eyes” or something.. but this counter productive whining from Obama on the piece is just silly.
Fortunately the Conservatives can’t take advantage of this liberal overreaction because to do so would mean they actually support the fact that the lies that made up this picture are shared by the subhuman, anti-intelligent conservatives in America.
Rusty Steelers = Packers Shackleford @ 5:
Those people who are not regular readers are probably most of the country, unfortunately. I saw this on CNN first thing this morning and figured the idiots at Faux were probably wetting themselves in anticipation of the hour-long investigative report they’ll do on this to keep the story (and cover) in the eyes of those impressionable fools even longer.
.
TERRORIST FIST BUMP!”
Repeating the propaganda until it sinks in.
The image supplied by the
SUNNew Yorker informs me that:~ Obama is a terrorist
~ Obama is Muslim
~ Michelle is in on it
FOXPRAVDA should give ED Hill a raise… NO?
.
Freedom of the press. OK. NO PROBLEM.
But fair is fair. How about a cover showing McCain “servicing” Bush?
They could even put quotation marks around the whole thing in case some people don’t get it.
I just heard the guy who wrote the article talking on NPR, and as he was describing the cover I could feel the blood draining from my face. All I could say was, “You dumb motherfuckers.”
Hey New Yorker: this might sound like really clever satire in your Manhattan mahogany paneled editorial room, but just wait until it’s being sold on a t-shirt outside the Republican convention.
You dumb motherfuckers.
Cindy would not want chocolates! John better be handing her a box chock full of percocet. That was her drug of choice to abuse I believe.
Ok…..The New Yorker is not trying to smear Obama, The New Yorker is doing what it does best, poke fun at the idiocy of the Media. The New Yorker is trying to point out how ridiculous the media is, and is in a way trying to make fun of the way the media portrays Obama. I know many of the people on here are going to try and say that the New Yorker is “racist” but come on!! I think this is a funny cover, and it’s just out there to show how stupid the media is.
Obama “As seen through Rush-tinted glasses!”
The cover douses flames with gasoline. Who could have predicted the mud-slinging against Obama would be as bad from the left as it is from the right?
From Limbaugh, O’rilley, Ann Coulter it would be declared racist. From the New Yorker it is considered satire? Oh wait, since they went on TV to announce its satire it’s all better?
I am not buying it New Yorker. I am not buying it.
Give me a break people…. it’s so clearly satirical that to get upset about it is absurd. A cover that pokes fun at lies and distortions about Obama shouldn’t be drawing this much outrage from left wing blogs etc.
Yes, I am an Obama supporter. Yes, I find the cover funny. No, its NOT worth getting upset over.
Good lord… its just one faux outrage after another. Politics in this country so often becomes inane, stupid “controversies” over misunderstandings and misinterpretations. I for one, am sick of it.
To get across the point that New Yorker was apparently trying to make, that image of the Obamas would need to be the picture on a TV set with a ‘Fox News’ logo in the corner. With a very fat couple watching the TV in the foreground and a copy of NYPost (also a Murdoch propaganda outlet) with a 3 inch headline saying ‘Obama! Secret Muslim!!!’ lying on the floor…
But without that context it hands ammo to the conservative media.
this, like all the other questionable ‘journalistic’ endeavors will do nothing but help obama in the long run.
even the painfully dumb are seeing through this kind of slander.
Is this cover more likely to dispel or enhance the myths?
What do you expect from a magazine run by closet Zionists? For them it’s win-win. Irony noting liberals will buy more issues & hillbillies will support their pro-Israel hidden agenda.
It’s satire. I don’t see what the big deal is. If the cover is enough to sink Obama, then he was the wrong candidate to nominate. Get over it.
Unforgivable race and fear carding to white people(to, of course sell their magazine) who dislike and or are afraid of black folks and Muslims holding public office. Hate and fear PROFITEERING at it’s worst….case closed.
Oddly enough, no, it wont. Which, I think, is an ironic statement about our collective intelligence as Americans - we’re more apt to accept the exaggeration as fact when finding the humor would take any effort.
What’s more ironic is that the editors of a publication with the legacy of the New Yorker would think for a moment that 8th grade intellects their journalists are expected to dumb down their writing for WOULD find the humor before believing the exaggeration.
If the Obamas were in anyway similar to the cartoon on the new yorker cover they would get my support. Of course i’m a militant leftist revolutionary so nobody wants my support. Y’all just move along, nothing to see here…
Let’s make lemonade out of this lemon:
1) Push New Joker (sic.) to give us a McCain follow up.
2) Keep pushing the absurdity of this, to try to reach those who want to believe it, and embarass them with facts ie. use the spotlight.
3) Point out that: “This is what it has come down to.”
4) Warn against the subtile prejudice that will continue to come out…not necessarily by the New Joker, but across the board.
Man, if you guys think the New Yorker is a tool of the conservative media, you need to read it sometime. Sy Hersh, anyone?
Shine a light, people!! This is just shining a light on the absurdity that is Faux News, O’Reilly, Limbaugh, Coulter, Murdoch….etc., etc., etc.!
count me in the camp of you people need to get over it. it’s satire. it’s funny. it’s smart. and, yes, it might actually require people to think in order to get it. too bad that’s so hard for most people in the US, but that shouldn’t stop them from trying anyway. just another example of the anti-intellectualization of our culture.
Back in the old days, New Yorker covers used to be completely unrelated to the content inside the magazine. The fact that they are now using cover art to promote content inside is another sign of that magazine’s dumbing-down and sad decline.
Let’s get on with real issues please. The New Yorker is not the enemy. One “cover malfunction” is not going to derail Obama’s campaign. I think all the hoo-ha over this cover is nonsense, personally, and yes I am a subscriber. The New Yorker has been an important leader in publishing the details of the Bush Administration’s crimes. They were also the first place many people read the name Barack Obama back when he was running for Senator in May 2004 and before his keynote address at the Democratic convention.
ocinemod @ 13:
Remember Paul Krassner’s cartoon “One Nation Under God” ??
If not I’ll let you imagine it and I’m certain you get it right!
Too clever by half is 100% right - New Yorker needs to get a grip of itself.
Faux approves of this message……seriously.
The New Yorker puts itself ahead of the interests of the country and democracy. The cover has succeeded in doing what it was meant to do — getting attention for a dying, shriveled prune of a magazine. That’s all these editors cared about. F-you New Yorker. I’ve bought my last edition of your rag.
no issue here…… pretty simple……
IF THEY ADMIT THEY ARE WRONG….. print an apology
IF THEY SAY IT WAS A FUNNY……… print the McCain Version too
…………..i like a good joke as well as the next guy………..so ON WITH THE HUMOR
As a fellow cartoonist, you can’t please all the people all the time. Good drawing. “F” ‘em if they can’t take a joke.
Zenrage @ 10:
Satire, satire, satire…Where has all the good natured, humor gone today and what
is this World coming to(at least in the US of A) when a cover like this is taken out
of context(satire) and attacked? Only rational answer I can come up with is that
“there is just toooooo much bitterness/hate/anger on both sides of the aisle”.
What a nation of whiners you people are.
I knew HuffPo and C&L would have their collective panties in a bunch, but Atrios, I never expected to be this big a pearl-clutcher.
No worries. I doubt the people who still believe the fallacies about Obama read The New Yorker.
Agent_M @ 18:
Manufactured outrage from a manufactured controversy? I think you’ve bought it, you just don’t get it. The punchline here is you, not the New Yorker, and from what I’ve seen in the media today they’re pretty much owning the entire U.S.
Also I’m buying it and framing it.
One might consider such cover art to be “partisan” by political standards. It does not have any humor associated with it that I can see. The NRA might like it due to the assault weapon. Who else would find it amusing? My biggest question is, why would anyone use such a drawing as a cover?
Does the person making that decision have an agenda?
Volum Hussein Christ @ 41:
You’re whining.
doctormidnight @ 43:
Sadly, many, many, many reich-wingers will be doing the same thing and will take this “parody” quite seriously.
I dunno guys. This is the first time I’ve really disagreed with (most of) my fellow liberals on this one. I honestly think that the image on the cover was pretty overt satire and did well to make the right wing smears look outlandish and stupid. But you all have a point. If the populace can believe that Gore actually said he invented the internets, Kerry didn’t deserve his medals, and Saddam was behind 9/11, then maybe I do overestimate the intelligence of the public.
And I hope the Obama campaign realizes that, and is too smart to say “We don’t like the cover because people won’t get that its satire,” instead going with “We don’t like the cover because it’s offensive.”
At least I hope that’s the case. If they’re legitimately offended, then I’m a little disappointed. Remember, it’s us who say that it’s the conservatives who have no sense of humor, who are unable to understand nuance.
Just my $0.02
Rollo Tomassi @ 26:
Are all you people clueless? Yes, the New Yorker is elitist, and not afraid to be. They don’t dumb down their writing for the morons on the right and, apparently, the left who would take this as real. Moreover, if the whiners (and here I think the term is appropriate) like the people posting here didn’t make a fuss about it, none of the racist idiots who would take it seriously would have noticed it; to expand on what someone earlier said, not only are they highly unlikely to be regular readers of the New Yorker, they’re unlikely to be regular readers at all.
I get the satire. And I’m sure the Republicans would have no problem with an analogous cover of McCain guzzling Anhauser-Bush and watching war porn with Phil Gramm, because of course they’re sufficiently sophisticated to recognize parody. Right?
Dr. Hussein Matt @ 46:
Oh noes!!! We better get in our jammies and climb into bed with mom, ‘fore the scaawy sccaawy retards on the right get mean at us!
Where’s my bwanky?!!!?