Have any of you outraged subscribers to The New Yorker have cancelled your subscription?
I think a good cover in response to this one should include McCain slaughtering an Abu-Ghraib-style pyramid of Vietnamese babies with one hand, and beating his wife with the other.
Really? Is there a left wing meme about McCain doing any of that stuff? Do you have a cite for it?
Personally, I think a more relevant alternative wrt McCain would be McCain looking in a mirror with GW’s reflection looking back at him, perhaps with McCain holding an olive branch and the GW reflection holding a bomb…something along those lines. THAT would be a relevant alternative.
Yours would be a rant…
-XT
I think people who believe this cover will understand that this is a joke about them. If they hear about it in a news report, that report will probably explain to them what the cover is about. At least this way they might think about whether their views are rational.
The only way I could see them not understanding the joke is if they just saw it in a magazine stand and didn’t ask anyone about it.
The Obama camp does need to grow thicker skin. Their response to the cartoon made them look stupid. I suspect they were trying not to look elitist, because only elitists can understand The New Yorker cartoons. :rolleyes:
Obama himself had no comment.
Since no one has mentioned it, and because it might be relevant, the cartoon is called “The Politics of Fear”.
There is the story about him calling his wife the C word, and there are some wingnuts accusing him of having dropped bombs on babies in Nam.
I disagree. The McW meme actually has a core of truth to it. Mccain really has reversed himself and embraced a number of Bush policies. An equivalent image would have to be something which had no truth to it all – the Manchurian candidate slur, for instance.
The Abu Ghraib pyramid symbolizes continuing on the way Bush is running things; the “baby killer” thing was a left-wing meme targeting Vietnam vets in the 60s & 70s; him beating his wife is in reference to McCain being (verbally) abusive to her publically in the past.
All images exaggerated for “comedic” effect.
Well…I stand corrected then. I didn’t know there was a left wing meme about him dropping bombs on babies in Vietnam, nor about him beating (or even verbally abusing) his wife.
I still think mine is more clever. 
-XT
I do have to admit, the mud slinging that’s gone on so far in this campaign has been varieties of boring or annoying.
If people can actually manage to make the next few months into one big long fight over New Yorker cartoons, I may just have to start tuning in to the news again.
That would make for an awesome anti-McCain 527 ad. Think of the Twin Peaks scene where Leland looks in the mirror and sees BOB. McCain is casually looking in the mirror fixing his tie and we see George Bush with a maniacal grin. Teen girl comes downstairs and looks at McCain and sees Bush, lets out blood-curdling scream…
Back to the New Yorker- for those who have already decided that the Obama glurge is false, it might give them a chuckle. For those who have decided the rumors are true, it reinforces their beliefs. For a handful in the middle, it probably will do more to push them toward belief than not, as satire is lost on the uninformed.
But there isn’t some left-wing group making (false) claims that he is some sort of Manchurian candidates, is there? If not, then it’s really not the same thing-- mocking some existing slur about the candidate.
That cover ran a little while after Clinton’s famous “3 a.m.” phone commercial. So Clinton and Obama are being woken up in bed by a phone ringing and fighting to answer it. There isn’t anything else to get.
Me too.
I didn’t know about the baby one either and I like to think I watch politics closely enough to pick up on those things. Wonder how I missed it?
I never heard of him beating his wife either although the verbal abuse part sure (calling her a “c–t” and “trollop” in public). That also jibes with his notorious temper and tirades towards other congresscritters which I do not think anyone suggests is made up or overstated.
I agree and you have to think the people that are stupid enough to look at it any other way are not New Yorker readers.
However, I can understand Obama’s objection to it because it’s everywhere now.
I don’t know if it ever got adopted on the left, but it was going around on the extreme right during the primaries.
Well I still think mine’s more clever :); I was going for a cover that would be just as offensive and ridiculous as the Obama cover by making use of multiple McCain rumors and memes.
A satire of McCain.
Nicely done too.
I love it…‘For all the Irony-Challenged Literalists…’.
-XT
That cover on The New Yorker = satire
That same cover on The National Review = hack job.
The problem, as I understand, sincve I have not read the article, is that hte article talks about Obama, but does not take on the sterotypes and the people who believe and spread them. The story is about Obama and not about the misrepresentations. WHile I think it is obvious satire, I think it is not very good satire.
The McCain cover is based on stuff that at least has some basis in truth. The Obama cover does not.