Well, Barack and his wife have been known to fist bump, so at least that’s accurate.
The “truth” is that some people are saying those things about Obama and his wife. It’s those people at whom the satire is aimed, not at Obama. I’m not sure why that is so hard to understand.
McCain is a drug crazed, doddering old man in a wheel chair who mutters about bombing Iran all the time while worshipfully looking at a painting of Chaney and warming his hands over the burning Constitution?? :dubious: Sounds like exactly the same kind of hyperbolic perception from the opposite wing…
Gods…my irony meter is off the charts here. It’s to funny that people will rant and rave about a joke aimed at their candidate while just shrugging and saying ‘Well, that’s got some basis in truth’ when similar hyperbole is served up against the side they are opposed to. The only thing that would make this perfect is if some McCain supporter came in complaining about the cover with him on it, while saying ‘The Obama cover is based on stuff that at least has some basis in truth’.
-XT
No, but all those things are exaggerations of things that are true. Cindy McCain really was a pill head. McCain really is old. He really did say “Bomb bomb Iran.” He really has taken positions which are contrary to the Constitution and sympatico with Cheney. The image represents gross exaggerations, but they’re exaggerations of truth. The Obama picture is based on complete fabrications, not exaggerations. The pictures are therefore not analogous.
Maybe he is out of touch. 
It isn’t hard to understand. But those at whom the satire is aimed may not be those whom it hits.
I do think it’s going a little too far (if you don’t think it’ll be used in an anti-Obama smear campaign you’re a fool), but I also think it’s poor satire.
Bosstone came up with a much better image (back in post 30) and something tells me he’s not a professional political satirist.
I just watched “The Daily Show” address the cartoon issue. The people most upset about the cartoon were apparently cable news anchors. The biggest peddlers of these false rumors found the magazine offensive.
Irony at its finest.
The point was brilliantly illustrated by following the clips of outraged media figures with clips of those same people spreading the very same gossip and rumors they are now denouncing.
What is the deal with the gun and bandoleras strapped onto Michelle? Is she supposed to have had some past with violent radicals (e.g. the Weather Underground)? Though I think she’s too young to have had any meaningful contact with the WU.
Without question the magazine’s regular readership is literate enough to recognize “satire” when they see it. It’s unfortunate that for most others, the cover is all they ever see.
I grew up on The New Yorker. My grandparents, who lived next door to me growing up, have every single issue since the late 40s (those are all I’ve managed to find). They have two rooms of their house literally wallpapered with New Yorker covers. I myself have had a subscription for about a decade. I thought this cover was one of their more accessible ones and really quite funny. It sums up my feelings quite nicely on this whole bloody election and it’s coverage. If they issue an apology in any way, shape, or form, I’m canceling my subscription - mark my words. I don’t expect they will, however, as The New Yorker is getting more publicity over this issue than over anything else they’ve ever done (which I find sad).
It’s stories like these that remind me why I rarely watch network news.
So I guess to answer the OP, no, I don’t think it’s too much.
I am amazed at the number of people who continuously miss the point here. Presumably intelligent and savvy people who read the New Yorker.
Yes, we ALL get that the cover is satire. And to liberals and New Yorker readers they get it and think it is funny.
Swell…no problem if the world was only populated by people who read and comprehend the New Yorker.
But it is not. There are more than enough people out there who will not get it. Or they will get it and deliberately misuse it. The New Yorker handed an ideal smear picture, one that conservatives would not have dared to make on their own, to the conservatives. They can now bandy it about willy nilly, it’s already out there and not their doing. As such the illustration will perpetuate misinformation in some groups who previously would have a hard time hanging on to their prejudices.
I get the humor here. I am not offended. In principle I agree with what they are trying to do. But I also am shocked at their naivete over this. Indeed I do not think the artist or the New Yorker were naive…I suspect they had to know where this would take them.
To be clear, there have been quite literally hundreds of Obama cartoons and most are not favorable. That’s fine. That’s par for the course. Every politician gets some of it and especially presidents and presidential candidates. No problem. This is in another realm however.
It looks like something the** National Lampoon** might have run on the cover in its heyday (early 1970s).
I have heard the elders speak of this National Lampoon.
It’s a clearer image, yes. It’s not better: it’s over-explained and gives the audience no credit for its ability to understand the image and interpret it as satire. It’s roughly equivalent to the Onion running a masthead reading “We are a parody newspaper” or The Colbert Report featuring a chyron that says “Stephen is only pretending to be a conservative pundit.”
I know how most people feel about Obama here, but the New Yorker (or other outlets regardless of how funny they are or are not) does not have a responsibility to make sure everyone in the world understands its satire. Dopers and news stations are both insulting a lot of people’s intelligence on this issue. This image is going to be misinterpreted, but deliberately so - by the people who are being mocked, and they don’t care in the first place - and it’s not hard to understand.
For those of you who haven’t read the article “Making it - How Chicago Shaped Obama,” it’s here:
Unfortunately there’s another article in the same issue, “Surfing the Universe” that’s not available online. It’s about Physicist Garrett Lisi’s search for the TOE.
You know, you and others keep saying this but do you have any evidence it’s so? Any evidence that people not already pre-disposed to believing this tripe are falling for it? The thing is, I’m not in the subset of ‘liberals and New Yorker readers’…and guess what?? I got the joke with no problems. I wasn’t suddenly struck by the thought that, hey! Maybe Obama really IS a closet Muslim, maybe his wife really IS an Angela Davis haired black radical, etc etc.
Seriously, you folk need to get a grip here. The majority of American’s are not the stupid, ignorant idiots you seem to think they are. The satire on that page really wasn’t all that deep that most people aren’t going to get it. Those who take it seriously are those who ALREADY believed such things. Just like you can’t change the minds of the folks who think the world is flat, that the moon landings were a hoax, that Intelligent Design is obvious, that the government was behind 9/11 or (this is a new one I just heard) that GW Bush was out on a barge just before Katrina struck NO rigging explosives to bring the levees down (and later flew out on a black helicopter), you can’t change the minds of those idiots who think Obama is a closet Muslim or his wife is a black radical…all you can do is make fun of them. Which is exactly what the New Yorker did.
I find it highly ironic all this hand wringing offense by liberal types at this cover because they are worries that some large percentage of American’s are too stupid to get the joke and will of course think gulp IT’S FER REAL! That only the sophisticated ‘liberals and New Yorkers’ seemingly are capable of getting the joke, so it should be railed against, less the unwashed masses get the wrong impression. :rolleyes: (there truly aren’t enough rolley eyes for this sentiment).
-XT
I think Americans are, generally, the stupid ignorant idiots I think they are. I believe if they actually bothered to educate themselves even a little bit most would change their belief if shown to be in error but I do not think most Americans ever bother.
An example:
That is just an appalling display of ignorance. IIRC a poll of troops in Iraq had something like 90% of them believing Hussein was responsible for 9/11.
Other posters (in this thread and/or some others) have related stories of debunking other people’s notions that Obama is a Muslim. And this among a crowd of presumably educated, professional people. Anecdotal perhaps but telling.
As for proof of my worries?
Sure there are people on one side who know better and people on the other who will believe what they will no matter what evidence is placed before them. But I think it is safe to say if you lined people up on that continuum there is a gray area in there somewhere. This cover fuels misconceptions and is a handy, one-stop shop for the lemmings who will never bother to educate themselves. When at the ballot booth will the picture be more likely to subliminally play against or for Obama with such people? Granted I am no expert but my experience suggests it will be a net negative for Obama.
Oh yeah, Whack-a-Mole?
You come on with all those facts about ignorant, stupid and oblivious Americans, but I’m gonna give you the ultimate rebuttal.
Today, in a NYT OpEd piece,They Get It, Timothy Egan interviews one guy, ONE GUY, “Land Tawney,a fifth generation Montanan with a gap-toothed smile…” who said that his fellow Big Sky-otes get the satire of the cover.
Case closed.