Yeah, I seem to be in a minority because I am not sending demanding emails.

I think it actually is a positive step -- all the boogy-men (and women) gathered in one over-the-top depiction. The ensuing uproar adds to the absurdity of the issue(s).

Now I want to see if they can get away with a similar cartoon featuring the untouchable, above-criticism, media hero Saint Integrity McCain and his young wife.

Well, I guess it's funny. To folks who are actually paying attention to politics and the Obama story.

But for the millions of folks who don't really give a rip until the weekend before the first Tuesday in November, I think seeing this image at newsstands and grocery counters will not evoke chuckles. It may not evoke anything. But it will be an image they sorta vaguely recall come November, like a nightmare from last week.

I think it's bad for Obama. That's all.

The mocking of the memes is, I suppose, effective. Except seeing it on the front cover of a major magazine seems to give more credence to those insane emails floating around, not less.

These days we no longer live in a time when the New Yorker arrived in the mail box, or at the news stand, or at the library.

I believe the cartoon was over the line, and dear David Remnick (who I have admired for years) just doesn't understand why.

There is the issue (long before that terrible term PC entered the language) that it is OK to criticize your own but watch out criticizing others---OK for a doctor to tell a doctor joke at an AMA convention, but a lawyer or someone else who isn't a doctor telling the same joke to a room where there are a few doctors but most people aren't doctors --same thing with lawyers or teachers or whatever--does not fit the manners many of us were raised with.

Also, lots of teachers and others try to break students of the habit of baiting other kids. I have seen a school poster which says "It is not funny when..." (someone cries, someone gets angry, someone's feelings were hurt).

"Gee, it was only a joke" is the long time habit of people who didn't realize they went over the line and were hit with backlash until it actually happened. (It was never funny to be made fun of for being short, having a name a joke could be made of, wearing glasses, etc.)

Robt. Reich looked at another aspect of this subject recently on his blog. http://robertreich.blogspot.com/

I understand the point they were trying to make. I also realize this picture has been shown lots of places where the target audience of the New Yorker is not the majority. And as someone was saying on a news show, if a joke is being explained on a news show, the joke failed because people didn't get it.

And I still remember that scary interview recently where someone went to a McCain rally to interview women. And one said she could never vote for Obama not only because of his middle name, but because he was first a Muslim, then a Christian, then after 20 years he left his church because he didn't like what the pastor said.

For all we know, such people are turning to their friends about this cover and saying "See! I knew it all the time!".

Yes, any reader has the right to be offended by anything in any magazine, and calling them PC or some such rot won't change that. If any subscriber (or person who regularly bought at the news stand) decides this is the last straw and they have bought their last copy of the magazine, they would be well within their rights.

I did think that New Yorker cover seen on TV tonite (about the Oval Office underwater after Katrina) was funny. But that was attacking policy, not personal qualities.

I'm not sure how funny it was, but I agree with your overall conclusion from an intellectual point of view. Unfortunately, most of Americans will read and see this image in any number of venues other than the New Yorker.

Any time any group/or individuals are portrayed in a way that strengthens faulty stereotypes that are wrong it is dangerous and disturbing.

I would be interested to hear from political strategist how you would turn something like this on its head and create an opportunity to dispel the myth itself. Is that possible? Or do you just let is die and move on?

And what happens if the same satire played out with a locally elected official or someone running for office and they and their partners are dressed as neo-nazis and plopped on the front page of a newspaper arguing in the name of satire?

It's a hard one...

Not only do I not think it's funny, I also think it is potentially very harming to Obama's campaign. People who aren't plugged in will see it, and remember it in November on some level. The fear card will no doubt be played in a big way sometime in October.

For myself, I pulled my subscription to the New Yorker awhile ago. I have no interest in supporting this type of behavior, I don't care how great (or not) the magazine is or was.

I'd like to see, as someone else mentioned today, a cover with McCain in a wheelchair, and his wife totally drugged out, pushing him along, with war vets in rags looking in the window..... What else should that cover have?

It made me smile.

When we curtail expression because some people [children, the poorly educated, the emotionally unstable, the morally imperfect] may misunderstand; we debase our social intellect and approach the pale and shallow homogenization of least-common-denominator communication.

One online definition of irony:

"incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result "

Perhaps the irony is people who are the target audience of New Yorker cartoons fail to understand that the election will likely be decided by voters like those interviewed for the "Distant Thunder" article here http://nationaljournal.com/brownstein.htm

Folks who have other things on their minds, may tune into the conventions, but don't pay much attention to politics in July and don't have the time, energy, inclination to read a whole New Yorker article. If they work long hours, have small kids, etc., they may be thrilled to have the time to read one newspaper.

But there I go again, saying there is a world out there beyond the blogs and political activists, and a widely seen cartoon like this one might have unintended consequences, even if New Yorker fans get the joke.

I'm sure Karl Rove did this. If you just watch the video it's obvious the building was imploded.

I just don't think we as a country have dealt enough with our racism to be able to make this "joke." Too many of our general beliefs are so deeply entrenched in racism that most won't/aren't capable of even getting what the joke might be. Obama knows this and is rightly outraged.

Jeff, thanks for saying what you said. Sadly, it seems you and I are in the minority on this one, even here at Blue Oregon.

Here's my two cents: It's satire, and it's funny. Now, I get what everyone is saying; basically, they're saying that millions of people will see this cover and believe he's a muslim, mostly because they're stupid and don't get the satire. Fine. There are two problems with this theory.

First, people who think he's a muslim aren't going to change their minds. They are not seeking every article they can find on whether Obama's a muslim, hoping to finally find that proof that he's actually a Christian. They're choosing to believe that despite ample proof to the contrary. We can't "save" everyone from their ignorance, and they're not thinking rationally. This cover doesn't affect their reasoning.

Second, and I know this is hard to believe, but it's not the New Yorker's job to get Obama elected. They don't say to themselves, "Yeah, but how does this cartoon or that headline affect voters in Georgia. We need to make sure it's not going to negatively impact Obama's numbers, since we work for him." Magazines sell add space and make a profit based on the number of people who buy it. Will this cartoon make you notice the New Yorker? Clearly.

In the end, if we are a nation concerned about racism, I find it incredible that we're more concerned with convincing people Obama's not muslim rather than convincing people there's nothing wrong with being muslim.

Personally, I think it's hilarious. I love it. I laughed out loud when I saw it. I think the fist bump is the best part. No, maybe it's the burning flag. Whatever--it's funny.

I bet one of the reasons that some folks don't like it is because they're scared that Obama is going to lose, and anything slightly off message makes them freak out.

I can see it helping by opening up a bit more dialogue about how absurd all these ideas are.

Great post, Jeff! I agree with you completely. It's a non-issue except to those who fear it will change the outcome of GE (it won't) and a huge gift from the NYer to the trad-media bobbleheads who (and McCain or his handlers got this right) desperately need "content", pertinent or not, to feed their monster's incredible appetite. This won't coast Obama one vote.

The cover was meant to be ironic, but it didn't provide the message itself; rather, we were expected to provide the message in response. Our response was supposed to be, "Wow, those racist stereotypes that other people use to depict Obama sure are terrible." But in the art, there was only the straight racist depictions, with no indication that other people were the ones at fault. The art wasn't framed by a speech bubble coming from a TV, for example, it was just there. It was incumbent on us to know the context: that The New Yorker is more likely to use irony than it is to use racist humor, and that Obama being black, or a Democrat, had nothing to do with The New Yorker's willingness to use such revoltingly stereotypical imagery for its cover — that they would do the same to McCain anytime, for example. If people don't accept that context, or simply don't consider it, then it is no longer ironic, it's literal.

Also what is literal: racist imagery will be on magazine racks all across the country.

I think the smarter decision would have been to frame the depiction as coming from others, or to simply put the illustration inside the magazine where context can be provided and where it will be seen by readers of The New Yorker, rather than by the general public.

I think the New Yorker had every right to publish that cartoon. And I had every right to cancel our subscription (which I did). My main problem with what they did is that they had no know the recklessness of the conduct, in light of all the ignorance and bigotry in this country, but I sincerely believe they threw caution to the wind because they figured they'd sell magazines.

Well, maybe they will sell magazines. Maybe they'll even sell more subscriptions. Then again, maybe I'm not the only one who canceled. We'll see.

More so than political satire, social satire frequently runs the risk of missing the audience and therefor the mark. It takes a real understanding of the general public demeanor to pull social satire off.

Unfortunately, this cover didn't work as intended.

We had, on a major news network, a "journalist" ask whether Obama and his wife were performing a "terrorist fist pump" when they bumped knuckles.

The exact language was "terrorist fist jab". Which just proves how stupid the talking hairdos are.

This reminds me of the emails I get from fellow Obama supporters in our Oregon South group. In outrage over some smear email, they actually add to its force by forwarding it to all of our members. In this political environment, this was an unfortunate cover. "Nuff said."

Now, why aren't we critiquing McCain's proposals? The possibilities there are seemingly endless.

Well, T.A., if you drained the sarcasm from your remark, you'd be right on target. See, it's not so difficult.

I enjoy watching the lions eat their young.

I subscribed to the New Yorker when I was a freshman in college (and Socialist). I tried to read it, but gave up after the 3rd issue (on a two year subscription): it made my econ textbook look good by comparison.

I made the same mistake with Foreign Affairs as a junior. Now when I pick up New Yorker, I still feel like a freshman trying to look smarter; but I can enjoy Foreign Affairs for 30 minutes at a time.

Any good political cartoon captures the truth. This one captured the Obama arrogance beautifully.

There is a block of people (apparently down to 12% now) who -- despite all evidence to the contrary -- believe and repeat these smears.

I agree that these people will never vote for Obama. Why do they continue to mouth these magical beliefs? Perhaps it is because they simply cannot move themselves to vote for a black man - but realize that is not generally something 21st century Americans say out loud, so they seize on the patriotism issue or the Muslim issue or the terrorism issue.

While I have never (to my knowledge) run into anyone who fits that description, I do wonder about the best way to burst through the magical thinking. Or even if I should bother since their latent racism will never be admitted publicly.

Randy2

'Tain't funny, Jeff. It's supposed to be a parody of the way the right wing depicts the Obamas, but parody only works if it's a wild exaggeration. This isn't a wild exaggeration; it looks like a poster the right wing might have developed itself to use against the Obamas. (In fact it wouldn't surprise me if they end up actually using it.) It comes across as ridicule of the Obamas themselves instead of ridicule of those making the ridiculous accusations against them. If I were the editor of The New Yorker I wouldn't have run it.

"Perhaps it is because they simply cannot move themselves to vote for a black man - but realize that is not generally something 21st century Americans say out loud, so they seize on the patriotism issue or the Muslim issue or the terrorism issue."

Precisely.

As dartagnan just pointed out, Randy2 hit the nail on the head. The people who might be swayed by this cover would never have voted for Obama in the first place. It's a poorly-executed joke, but it's still a joke. Is the New Yorker now to be run out of town on a rail, as Imus was?

"I think seeing this image at newsstands and grocery counters will not evoke chuckles."

Grocery counters? The New Yorker?

http://www.620kpoj.com/pages/thom_hartmann.html The POJ Poll:

Do you think The New Yorker's controversial cover is good or bad for the Obama campaign?

Good - it promotes discussion of stereotypes 18.46 %

Bad - it reinforces those stereotypes 81.54 %

Maybe we laugh too much?

In our very recent past, while we Lefties have been chuckling and snorting at the sarcasm, the Reich has taken two elections. We have to get up from our ROTFLOL seizures to get into the fight after the prize has already been stolen...twice. And we wonder how they got away with it.

Frankly, I am glad so many people are taking this seriously. I also want to find the magic words that interrupt the tapes playing through the heads of the 12% who have no idea where they heard Obama was a Muslim. Well, now not only have the 12% heard it, they have seen it. Cartoon, yes, but taking up real estate in their memories just the same.

We all recall the Swift Boat ad, it received much more time in the news then it ever had actually being run as a commercial. At least the New Yorker is only a monthly. What we failed to do was counter quickly enough. The response we needed was, "So they are actually willing to admit Kerry was in Vietnam?"

Now we do need to laugh out loud ... in public ... and declare how ridiculous the cover is so maybe the 12% Zom-Bushes might wake up. That's what hope does. It never stops trying. Then we need to get serious. Let's keep our feet under us get ready for the next one ... and the next one.

Doesn't the New Yorker know that Muslims can't take a joke? Didn't they read about the stupid Muslims around the world who rioted after seeing some cartoons published?

Satire is always dicey,...

And if it is a carbon copy of what some hostile person might produce it will very likely not be recognized as satire. In other words, as so many critics of the New Yorkers cover have said, it will backfire. Some element must be included to give some indication that what has been presented is satire.

I. F. "Izzy" Stone wrote a piece of satire that began, "In taking over the high office to which I have been elected as head of the Smith family,...," making it obvious the article was something other than his usual serious writing.

Mark Twain's "War Prayer" was obvious and biting satire. No sane person would have made such a prayer in public; although, it bears a strong resemblance to statements made by Crusaders going off to war against the Muslim infidels during the Crusades.

The estimable Juan Cole has an interesting point: "It is typical of the atmosphere in America today that the New Yorker cover caricaturing the Obamas is called offensive by the Obama campaign but virtually no one is talking about how demeaning it is of American Muslims. A little detail like that. Imagine if a US candidate had been depicted as an Orthodox Jewish settler with an Uzi machine gun in the West Bank, the hue and cry that would ensue."

Seems to me, the New Yorker stood too close to their own sarcasm bomb. What they did was not a biting satire, so much as a perfect replica of the Republican narrative of the Obamas as reported with all seriousness by the right wing noise machine.

As for why it fails as ironic humor, Daily Kos already put it better than I can...

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/7/14/81539/2609/953/551288

Dear David Remnick, Editor, New Yorker:

Dude, I've ben thinking about a hysterical piece of cover art.

What if I did one of those evolutionary charts, showing how primitive man evolved into modern man, but where the missing link is supposed to go... I drew Barack Obama! It could be ironic, y'know, and show how SOME think black people are a lower form of human life!

Oh! And I could draw it so the last figure... the most evolved... looks like John McCain!

Huh? Huh? Funny?

Tell me what you think?

Love,

Barry Blitt, illustrator

It gets better...

I think this New Yorker cover was not only funny, but brilliant. It is in fact firmly rooted in the magazine's satirical traditions. It accomplished precisely what satire is supposed to do. It took all the wingnut caricatures of the Obamas and exaggerated them to such a degree that it showed those caricatures for the absurd nonsense that they are.

After the huge flap in Europe a few years ago about the newspapers that published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad, Harper's published a lengthy article by Art Spiegelman on satirical cartooning, entitled "Drawing blood: Outrageous cartoons and the art of outrage." (If I've got to explain to you who Spiegelman is or what his work is about, well, you're probably not going to get this.) Spiegelman illustrated his article with his own caricatures, including some astoundingly over-the-top anti-Semitic and racist ones. He also deconstructed the Prophet Muhammad caricatures in great detail. Please have a look at Spiegelman's article before unloading on The New Yorker.

BTW, The New Yorker publishes cover caricatures of politicians all the time. Of all parties. Of all ideological stripes.

Anyway, how many progressives does it take to screw in a light bulb?

I'd like to see, as someone else mentioned today, a cover with McCain in a wheelchair, and his wife totally drugged out, pushing him along, with war vets in rags looking in the window..... What else should that cover have?

It should show McAncient rattling steel balls with one hand and brandishing his cane with the other (or alternatively, brandishing an enormous Edwardian ear trumpet). Looking through the window should be a couple of goofy, squinty-eyed North Vietnamese communists grinning at each other and holding up the remote control with which they intend to "activate" McCarrion after the election.

That would be good funny satire.

On cue was a nice,elderly woman who said that while she was a lifelong Democrat, she couldn't support her party's candidate and didn't like him because he was" one of them Muslims."

Hint: anyone who introduces herself in a public forum as "a lifelong Democrat, but", has most likely never voted Democrat.

I agree with Kristen though - "But African Americans have been told for too long that, "Gee, it's just a joke. Lighten up".

Usually followed by, "Don't you people have any sense of humor?"

The exact language was "terrorist fist jab". Which just proves how stupid the talking hairdos are.

Evidently they never once saw "Deal or No Deal".

I was rolling on the floor watching CNN send reporters to "the hood" looking for a dusky-hued guy in a do-rag so they could ask what the bump meant. Investigative journalism at its finest!

Then there was that great piece of political satire at the White House Correspondents' dinner when Bush was looking all over the place for those WMDs that Saddam Hussein was supposed to have. Hilarious for all the guests except a couple who walked out - and the troops in Iraq who were being killed and maimed while the elite diners were eating and drinking some of the finest that Washington had to offer. Very funny. Yeah, right.

Satire can be very, very funny. And very biting. This is neither. Swing and a miss. It happens.

Marc Ambinder:

There really is a politics of outrage, and it has spread like a cancer throughout the body politic. It's become the default currency of political conversation. Outrage is supposed to be extreme anger about an extreme and dignity-damaging insult. It has instead become the quotidian autonomic emotional register of most species of political actors, including partisans, campaign operatives and pundits. Hence: what used to be normal is now considered extreme. Outrage is the easiest type of story for journalists to write about. We create crises when we report on aggrieved and outrage parties. and then we cover the reaction to the stories we write about.

James Kilpatrick, with whom I disagree very often politically, has a column on writing that is syndicated in the (Bend) Bulletin and other papers. I read it every Sunday and learn a lot from it.

One of the points he makes frequently is that a writer has the responsibility of making himself clear as the reader is not obligated to try to determine what the author is taking about. The same goes for cartoonists. The strong division of opinions on the New Yorker cover with an apparent preponderance forming negative opinions suggests this cartoonist failed. The cartoon might have been more successful if it had a title such as, "A redneck's (Limpbag's, O'LIElly's) view of the Obama's."

Then there is the question of humor. Many people who routinely find the New Yorker cartoons funny found this cover very unfunny. Some of us in the senior brackets still find Groucho Marx reruns to be lots of fun. While many of us found Seinfeld to be very entertaining, we have a problem finding the humor that comes out of some present-day stand-up comedians. Probably, the audiences who find this last species hilarious would have a problem figuring out the humor in Groucho.

There is also the perverse behavior of some people who laugh at alleged jokes whether they are funny or not because of the perceived authority or power of the person attempting to make the joke. Witness the White House Correspondents' dinner referred to above.

Bill Maher: “If you can’t do irony on the cover of The New Yorker, where can you do it?”

If you can't do irony or satire skillfully, you're better off not doing it at all. If you're skilled in this style, by all means give us your best. We could all use a little good humor these days.

Stephen Colbert says Obama intends to cancel Christmas and substitute a gay holiday. Satire or not, people will believe this and it will cost us the election.

The answer: Let's ban irony and send the purveyors to Gitmo, where they can be "entertained".

okay, i'm sick of hearing how if i consider the cover to be ill-conceived and inappropriate, i don't recognize irony or am unable to appreciate context.

listen. i'm one of those "rare urban elite lefties" who subscribes to the new yorker. i read it cover to cover every week. i love it. it's a brilliant magazine.

further, i get it. i get the joke. i really do. i understand how they're trying to be ironic. i grasp how the appearance of "the new yorker" banner provides the context. i know what satire is, and i see how they were attempting to satirize the right-wing scary black people caricatures of the obamas.

but, in my opinion, it doesn't work. it's not funny. it's not effective satire. they aimed high and missed, glaringly, embarrassingly, cringingly so.

and i'm thinking about not renewing my subscription over this. which kinda breaks my heart.

there's only one other thing i want to add. as far as i know, the people that i'm reading on the interwebs who are scolding others that they need to be more hip, more ironic, to get with it and appreciate the satire, it's a JOKE, see, - have been white people.

the people of color who have blogged about this - well, i haven't seen any who think it is funny. and i'm not cool with a bunch of white people telling others when it is and when it is not okay and funny to publish racist caricatures of black people on the cover of a NATIONAL weekly magazine.

and i'm also extremely not cool, as a new yorker subscriber, with adopting the attitude that, yes, well it's okay for US to publish racist caricatures, because we're being ironic and WE'RE certainly not the racist white people, see it's those OTHER white people that we're satirizing. those people are the problem. us? we're funny and sophisticated and EVERYONE KNOWS that the new yorker isn't racist, you can tell by how many people of color are on our editorial board, so, what's the matter is our wit too DRY for you?

so.

not.

okay.

MASSIVE FAIL.

okay, so there are two black bloggers who think that people need to appreciate the irony or whatever. i sit corrected.

here's another point of view, for what it's worth:

http://www.racialicious.com/2008/07/14/the-new-yorker-and-hipster-racism/

and, i would add that the lack of the object of the satire is exactly why this does not work. it aimed high, but it failed.

Having received two emails containing the Obama is Muslim slander from a lifelong Democrat and a onetime Montana DCC employee, I know that those rumors have penetrated further than the Republican fringe. That person emphatically believes he is Muslim and for the first time in her life will be voting for a Republican. That this is bigoted doesn't seem to bother her.

The thing is, if you have to explain a joke, it's not a very good joke. Moreover, the rumors this cartoon is satirizing have a racist subtext. I know white people routinely assert their right to define what black people are allowed to take offense at, but defending this cartoon pushes that particular white privilege way over the usual assumptions that we whites are the humor judges.

1) The McCain cartoon is not an equivalent cartoon. For one, it true. : ) No, seriously, there are some true elements such as Cindy McCain's theft of pills from her charity to feed her addiction and McCain's increasingly addled public statements such as his recent Czechoslovakia comment that lead to speculation that his age is affecting his recall. Additionally, no part of the McCain cartoon perpetuates racist stereotypes about angry blacks, etc.

2) The defense of this cover will be used to defend similar covers with the intent of smearing him. I can hear the pundits now, "Sure, when the liberal New Yorker shows him in a dish-dasha it's okay, but when The National Review does it....Oh, the hypocrisy."

3) If he had placed this picture on a TV screen with the FOX chyron, perhaps then the satirical intent would be emphatically clear. As it is, he is satirizing people who are not shown...who must be provided by the viewer. Not all viewers will provide that context, particularly in the magazine aisle.

I think I've got the picture of what Blue Oregonians think humor OUGHT to be: Bathroom jokes. Knock-knock jokes. Reruns of The Three Stooges. <s>Three guys walk into a bar.</s> Nope, not that last one, it might contain some sort of stereotyping that would lead Undecided Voters to vote Republican by mistake.

Yes, it's fascinating how many people posting here are just truly, truly concerned that a CARTOON might lead people away from Right Thought and Right Action and all the way over to the Dark Side.

As for The New Yorker, evidently to render it safe for Blue Oregonians, it needs to come with a warning such as the following, which I found at a site with light-bulb jokes:

WARNING! This file contains material of a satirical nature. It may be offensive to members of the following groups:

Californians Oregonians New Yorkers New Jersey-ians Generals Politicians Marxists supply-side economists Athletes Students artists Professors Psychiatrists Psychologists Doctors Lawyers Christians Jews Zen Buddhists gods Vice Presidents Managers [ethnic]s Russians Feminists mice Homosexuals Lesbians Software people IBM employees WASPs Bell-Labs Employees

We could be talking about the state of this country's economy, Jane Mayer's excellent new book about the role of Cheney in the war on terror and all the bad things that happened (how much of it did Bush know or was it all Cheney?), the fact that McCain seems to think it is OK for soldiers to serve 3, 4, or 5 tours of duty overseas with very little time at home in between deployments, how Virginia has elected so many Democrats in recent years, how Colorado went for Bush in 2004 but Democratic for many lower offices, and all sorts of other issues.

But no, what we are debating is whether anyone who believes the New Yorker cover (with no caption unless you open the magazine) is "hip" and those who believe it is in poor taste should just get over it.

And some people wonder why so many ordinary folks register NAV and tune out politics until a few months before the election.

So call me "un hip". Say my friendships 40 years ago with black friends in the days when we were just getting around to outlawing discrimination in housing and other areas shouldn't inform my views on this cartoon. Criticize my attitude expecting adults to behave at least as well as many of the well-mannered young people I have met. Say all that means I am not "cool" and I "just don't get it". As you say that, ponder whether you are speaking from the point of view of someone whose friends are all Portland or other progressives who don't live among the more politically diverse folks Jenni mentioned.

So, fine--I am a uncool, unhip, old fuddy duddy who doesn't appreciate irony (and how is that KPOJ poll on this issue going this afternoon?). But then don't expect me to support your views on issues you care about if they go contrary to what I believe.

This flap has had one great benefit for Obama. It has kept a discussion away from his really dumb idea of sending another 10,000 troops to Afghanistan. McInsane is worse. He wants to send three brigades instead of Obama's two there. Apparently, these contenders for the presidency learned nothing from Lyndon Johnson's blunder in Vietnam after the Tonkin Gulf "incident" or Russia's own catastrophe in Afghanistan.

I disagree that it's a bad idea. In fact, I think it should be a hell of a lot more than 10K.

Juan Cole (July 14) on Obama's idea for sending more troops to Afghanistan: "The major critique I have is that Obama keeps talking about intensifying the search and destroy missions being carried out by US troops in the Pushtun areas of southern Afghanistan. As we should have learned from Vietnam, search and destroy missions only alienate the local population and drive it into the arms of the insurgency."

Jeff, maybe you and Jenni need to have a conversation in person. You don't live that far apart (not as if one of you lives in Marion or Polk County, for instance).

We had a wonderfully successful event for a legislative candidate here in Salem this evening, and mostly the talk was of local politics. Grass roots politics lives!

And about this, "Something about them damn New York elites ridiculing the Heartlanders just chafes, though. I say let it chafe. ",

would you say that to someone in person in a downstate county? Or don't you talk to anyone outside your circle of friends in Portland?

That's what happens when the 88% of us who are sophisticated and erudite attempt to mock the 12% who are not.

Nobody gets it.

In the meantime, while we critique each other's stylistic merits, John McCain plods on.

We have a chance to sweep this election nationally you know. It possibe to win the White House and crushing majorities in both Houses.

This conversation isn't the way to do it.

Focus, please.

(87th comment)

jeff, there's a difference between "the onion" and "the new yorker" doing this, and that is that "the onion" only does satire, period, and nothing else. TNY occassionally dabbles in satire, but is not strictly a satirical publication.

chris, you brought up the point about the elitism. well, i have to honestly say that my first reaction was that TNY is an elitist magazine in a lot of ways. so, there's that. and, as a subscriber, i have to be honest that it doesn't bother me. it isn't very often mean-spirited though, which is to its credit. but then, it doesn't need to be.

OTOH, i do have a problem with it behaving in a racist manner, which i consider this to be. now you've got me thinking about the intersection of elitism and racism, and whether they can be exclusive to each other, ever. i don't know the answer to that. there's some food for thought there.

as to finding it funny. here's the thing: i see the (attempted) humor. i honestly get why people find it funny. but you know, as a white person it is my privilege to not know how it feels to have pictures like that drawn of me (or people like me). so that makes it much easier for me to see it as funny. it's a white privilege thing going on here, in a big way.

and, i can imagine that even though the cover is setting out to mock those who purvey these images, rather than be the purveyors themselves, for blacks and/or muslims to see this, well, i can imagine it not coming off as all that helpful. of course not all blacks or muslims are going to feel that way, but the obamas aren't liking that much.

i have an analogy that i can think of that would be similar for me as a woman, but i don't know if i'll share it. not necessarily interested in opening myself up as a target, you see.

I would once again heartily recommend that people see the great Harper's article "Drawing blood: Outrageous cartoons and the art of outrage," by Art Spiegelman. OK, some context: Spiegelman is a well-known graphic artist, especially known for Maus, a graphic novel about the Nazi death camps. (Spiegelman himself is the son of survivors.) He sometimes draws for The New Yorker as well. Sorry, you cannot actually download the archived Harper's article for free....

The magazine cover that Spiegelman drew for the aforementioned issue of Harper's was a collection of over-the-top caricatures, including a canonical big-nosed Jew, a Stepinfetchit-like black man, and so on. Yet no sane person supposed that Harper's had transmogrified into a publication promoting anti-Semitism and the subjugation of black people. The entire point was to use the caricatures to undermine themselves...which is precisely what the New Yorker cover is doing, too.

Per Jo Ann Bowman's comments:

So implying that the next President of the United States is a flag burning, afro wearing, muslim, fist bumping radical is satire and those of us who find no humor are too dumb to get it...please.

Racism continue because good people don't see the harm.

I fail to see how the caricature implies any of those points that Ms. Bowman alleges it does. Moreover, as the wingnuts have been making these very claims more-or-less explicitly in their chain e-mails, their winking-and-nodidng on Faux News, and so on, how on Earth can anyone possibly claim that an over-the-top caricature on the cover of The New Yorker is changing the tone of the debate?

Let me go further: How on Earth can we have reasonable, rational debate about racial- and ethnic relations in our multi-racial, multi-ethnic country if we're afraid to even examine the stereotypes? And we don't examine stereotypes just by earnest discussions; we do this work as well through humor, fiction, and art.

Jo: Racism continue because good people don't see the harm.

Joel: I fail to see how the caricature implies any of those points that Ms. Bowman alleges it does.

... because good people don't see the harm.

Mr. Bodden, you're setting the old "denial" trap. You assert that I am in denial. If I say "yes, I am," then I'm agreeing with your claim. If I reply "no, I'm not," well, then I've just denied your claim, hence I'm still in denial. Nice logical trap, basically the same as this paradox:

Claim: I am lying!

An apparently simple statement, but if you think about it, what is the truth value of this statement? If I told the truth, then I lied. On the other hand, if I lied, then I told the truth.

I know, let's just ask Barack Obama if he still beats his wife....

Tom Tomorrow on satire, the cartoonist's art, and the flap being played out in this thread....

And for those in this thread wanting a "vicious" caricature of John McCain as a doddering old fool and his spouse as a drug-addled nitwit, here you are, from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

Joel's link to Tom Tomorrow makes a lot of sense.

These cartoons are funny.

If you don't want to click on the links, the first shows the same cover on the New Yorker and a very different magazine and how people would react.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/cartoonsandvideos/toles_main.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

This is a video cartoon satarizing commentators

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/opinions/cartoonsandvideos/telnaes/telnaes_main.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

jeff, with all due respect, i DON'T miss your point, or the point of the cover. i get it. i really do.

i just happen to not agree.

and as for my outrage? it isn't because i want the new yorker to be dumber. it's because i want it to be smarter. i want it to be smarter than this. i want it to be as smart as it usually is. i want it to not miss when it swings, especially if its going to swing this hard.

chris, the stuff w/ respect to class issues and discomfort within white society is another good point worth contemplating in all this.

http://sendables.jibjab.com/

"time for some campaigning"

is lol funny

Chalupas!

Whether you think this cover is funny or not, it succeeds in forcing a conversation about whether Obama is a Muslim. Many of us have seen the "Obama: Secret Muslim" emails. And while the press has reported on them, they're still bubbling about mostly under the surface. The BEST way to defuse ugly rumors is to publicize them. By November, we need to make it a national joke for anyone to refer to Obama as a Muslim. The kind of thing where it gets you laughed out of the room. The NY-er cover helps by plastering the absurdity where everyone can see it. Yes, some won't get the joke, but over the next few weeks there will be thousands of interactions where someone says "But I can't vote for a Muslim", and someone else will laugh and say "Didn't you see that magazine cover? You're just what they were talking about!"

[NB: It is a difficult line to walk between making it a joke while still pointing out that there isn't anything wrong with a Muslim running for president. My point is not so much to defend the current state of political discourse -- because I can't -- but instead to recognize it and imagine a way to get Obama elected.]

As for the cover itself, I agree with Kevin's comment that it would be very obvious if the cover were being drawn by an elephant. But then again, do we have to make everything obvious? It always ruins it for me when I'm watching a movie, and they've made a subtle point through obtuse dialogue or body-language or whatever, and then they ruin it by directly making the same point. It's like the editor, watching it back, said "We better add this new scene so that the stupid people can follow along." Does everything have to be dumbed-down because we're afraid that not everyone will get it?

Question to those who don't find it funny: Would you find it funny if it were being painted by an elephant? If so, doesn't that mean that you aren't against the cover per se, more that you are afraid that it will be misinterpreted by the ignorant among us?

A neighbor just dropped off an Obama mailer soliciting funds. It has a flyer that I wonder might be satire. It's all about change, bringing people and red and blue states together and other uplifting stuff. Nothing about shredding the Fourth Amendment, business as usual with the right wingers in Israel and AIPAC, nor digging the hole deeper in Afghanistan. If it is satire, I don't get it.

Obama had to denounce the cartoon, or face being lumped in with snooty New Yorker readers who think they're smarter than everyone else (whether or not such readers exist). But Obama is at his best when he calls on us, as this cartoon does, to wrestle with complex issues (racism, patriotism) and reject the shallow "debates" of gotcha sound bites that never rise above the level of bumper sticker slogans.

As a knowing nod to its own self-satisfied readers, the New Yorker cover is really irritating. But that's not what it is. One could argue that was the intent, but it doesn't matter. It's part of the national discourse now, and we have to ask ourselves why we respond to it in whatever way we do. It's become so well publicized that the image can't possibly be taken as un-ironic truth, except by a tiny lunatic fringe who are beyond help anyway. The rest of us are forced to start questioning our assumptions. As satire goes, that's slam-dunking the holy grail.

"Obama is at his best when he calls on us, as this cartoon does, to wrestle with complex issues (racism, patriotism) and reject the shallow "debates" of gotcha sound bites that never rise above the level of bumper sticker slogans."

THANK YOU Mr. Skorpen. That's been my sense, too. Although I have to mention that I've met people on the left who regarded his Philadelphia speech on race relations, back in March, as shallow and formulaic....

Mr. Bodden: You are still getting your description of Israeli politics all wrong. The present government, like many others recently, is a broad coalition of parties that includes LABOR, a center-left party. Yet you insist on referring to "right-wingers" controlling the Israeli government. Life is more complicated. But I do appreciate your observation about the satirical potential of that neighborly brochure. Did it also have photos of fuzzy kittens?

In closing, I'm not so dense as to be oblivious to the "white privilege" arguments made in this discussion thread. But again I ask: how can one ever hope to make headway against racism if discussing racism, and having a spirited debate in so doing, is itself taboo?

in answer to miles question, no we do not have to make everything obvious. (or was that a rhetorical question?) and if the cartoon were shown being drawn by an elephant it would be a completely different statement. instead of the object of the satire being subtextual it would then be part of the piece.

i've been reading a lot of places around the blogosphere the general assertion that people who don't like this cartoon either don't get it, don't have senses of humor, or want to abandon satire as a humor/criticism form, or deplore subtley or whatever. i don't feel that way at all. in general i'm a big fan of satire and subtlety. in fact one of my favorite shows on television is "weeds", though i have to be in a certain frame of mind to be in the mood for it's deliciously razor sharp dissection of white suburban america.

but the thing is, what we are dealing with here is not satire of a historically powerful group, but rather some incindiery racist depictions of african americans and/or muslims. and i think that it something that is not necessarily verboten, but needs to be handled delicately and with a great deal of care. satire is a powerful tool, as is subtext, but (as ani difranco says) - every tool is a weapon of you hold it right.

that's why care must be exercised on the part of the artist to not be clumsy with their work. again, the problem that i have is not that it is satire, but that it is not skillful enough satire to avoid overstepping into dangerous territory.

and in response to joel's question, i think we can have good spirited deb ate on the subject, and that is what i believe we are doing here. i would rather racist caricatures on the cover of a national magazine that i highly respect were not the impetus for the discussion, but i'm glad we are having.

and i do see the point that, for what it's worth, the magazine cover does have people talking about this issue. we don't know if that was the intent, or if it achieved its intent in a way that was planned, but that is a backhanded positive outcome of this. that's easy for me to say, though.

Mr. Walls: I want to defend Bill Bodden's use of the broadbrush "right-wing" to paint Israeli policy-makers. Hitler's economic policies were often "leftish" compared to, e.g., DP economic policy, but very few would be so bold as to claim he was not a "right-winger". Similarly, U.S. economic policy-makers are sometimes "liberal", but their foreign policy is almost always "right-wing".

Regardless of the party in power, Israeli policy toward Arabs has been worse than apartheid.

I also want to endorse Bill's attempt to inject mention of Obama's foreign policy objectives, e.g., "redeployment" of troops to Afghanistan and who-knows-where-else. This cartoon stuff, as others have said, should actually end up helping him, but it sure does shift the focus from his right-wing leanings to something less difficult for progressives to deal with.

Mr. Bodden: You are still getting your description of Israeli politics all wrong. The present government, like many others recently, is a broad coalition of parties that includes LABOR, a center-left party. Yet you insist on referring to "right-wingers" controlling the Israeli government.

As far as the Palestinians are concerned, Likud, Kadima, Labor and other party labels in Israel are meaningless. They are all hostile to the Palestinians and are participants in the crime against humanity going on in Gaza and have helped drag the United States into it. Consider this article by Uri Avnery, for example.

Well, Trishka, if you're going to quote Ani, I can't do anything but agree with you. :)

http://www.cleveland.com/schultz/index.ssf?/base/living-0/1216197021299210.xml&coll=2

Jeff, and others who agree with you, it might be a good idea to attend a gathering in any Oregon county which approximates certain Ohio counties.

<h2>The link is to a Connie Schultz column. As you may know, she is the wife of US Senator Sherrod Brown.</h2>