New Yorker Death Spiral Watch

UPDATES: Rich Yeselson of Change to Win writes, in email:

[H]ere's the problem... the satirical thrust of the drawing is entirely dependent upon the viewer being hip to the fact that this, well, The New Yorker's cover. There is nothing, per se, about the drawing itself that cuts against the grain of a completely literalist interpretation of its depiction of the Obama's as terrorist. Anyone so prone to such an interpretation will see here a visual representation of their views. As art, the work is completely overdetermined by its cultural context.... So: That's bad satire. And, so, yeah--I blame the New Yorker for publishing bad satire.... Do they have the "right"? Well, of course.... But the art s-----, and the political consequences may not be good, so I have the right to say I'm not happy with their editorial decision....

It's a simple point. You should be able to get the joke without knowing it's a New Yorker cover, or reading an inteview from the Editor in Chief. If you can't, then it's not good visual satire. And it's an easy point to test: If you put the same drawing on the cover of a far right magazine, your response would be pretty damn different, wouldn't it? You might even be appalled. That's what I mean--it is indeed entirely dependent on its cultural context. That means it bad satire, lousy art. The editorial decision, therefore, was also a lousy one...

---

Why oh why can't we have a better press corps? Kevin Drum on the New Yorker cover:

The Washington Monthly: [A] few minutes thought convinced me [that the cover] was gutless. If artist Barry Blitt had some real cojones, he would have drawn the same cover but shown it as a gigantic word bubble coming out of John McCain's mouth — implying, you see, that this is how McCain wants the world to view Obama. But he didn't. Because that would have been unfair. And McCain would have complained about it. And for some reason, the risk that a failed satire would unfairly defame McCain is somehow seen as worse than the risk that a failed satire would unfairly defame Obama.

So: gutless. And whatever else you can say about it, good satire is never gutless.

And Ta-Nehisi Coates writes:

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Maybe white folks shouldn't draw pictures of Michelle Obama...: At this very moment, me and Kenyatta are debating New Yorker cover. She's a little more pissed than me.... [T]he problem is that it's very hard to satirize the rumors around Michelle and Barack. Satire needs overstatement. But the cover doesn't actually overstate... it's the sort of image you'd expect to see at one of the nuttier websites or publications, and so... it doesn't work very well [as satire]...

Which means it works fine as a concession to right-wing wingnuttery.

Coates goes on:

I think "offensive" is bit much, but I can see that we do have the makings of a problem... I've come up with a compromise. White people--step away from the sepia-toned crayons. Black people--recognize that incompetence and epic fail may be the only things more common than bigotry...

Here's the cover:

Comments

[Charles]

Yup.

That's incredibly bad.

Danish cartoons bad.

[albrt]

Recognize that the New Yorker is constrained to thin the ranks of its subscribers on a periodic basis by winnowing out persons who are insufficiently urban, hip, cynical, and better than everyone else including Barack Obama. The New Yorker's standard advertising contract specifies that it must give refunds to its advertisers if its audience is found to be insufficiently urban, hip, cynical, and better than everyone else including Barack Obama. Very few people know that this explains the origin of Serrano's "Piss Christ," which was an actual photograph of an attempt by New Yorker advertising executives to use an image of jesus to perform a litmus test for a would-be subscriber from Alabama. It worked, but only on a meta-cultural and not a literal level.

[jerry]

This is more pearl clutching, but this time the pearl clutchers are the ones that normally decry pearl clutching.

Michael Savage and Sean Hannity have been making some extremely vile, bigoted, and disgusting attacks on Obama and Democrats for months. This cover will do nothing to aid the right wing.

Duncan Black tonight decried this cover by saying "Apparently it is okay to say n*r if you say you're being ironic."

This week is netroots nation, and Kevin Drum, mild mannered Kevin Drum will appear on a panel there that HE calls the "F*K" Panel where he and Duncan Black and others will discuss foul and offensive language and remarks in the liberal blogosphere. And Kevin tells us that he will argue that liberal bloggers should use the F word more often.

What is the relevance here?

Well also on that panel is Amanda Marcotte. Amanda famously got herself kicked off the Edwards' campaign after she rudely, callously, attacked Catholics. And later she made some very bigoted and misandric comments about the Duke students and white men in general wanting to rape and get away with raping black women.

Her apology? Her apology regarding the attack on Catholics was that she was being ironic and didn't mean to offend anyone. Her bigoted and racist attacks on the Duke students have never been apologized for. Her bigoted and homophobic, her bigoted and transphobic attacks have never been apologized for.

Brad, I think Duncan Black IS a national treasure and I really wish he would run for office.

But stop pearl clutching, and stop joining in with the mighty wurlitzer, and encourage Duncan Black to stop pearl clutching too.

Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Jon Swift, Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Robert Mapplethorpe, Bill Hicks, and many many offensive artists and comedians urge you to make a firm stand in favor of comedy, and satire, even comedy and satire that you think falls flat.

[jerry]

The TalkLeft thread on this has some real insights, including comparisons of this cover to many many political cartoons we see daily, comparisons of this cover to the Danish Cartoons that most people defended regardless of their offense, and comparisons of this to other covers that have appeared at The New Republic, the Huffington Post, and other magazines.

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/7/13/215330/762

[bad Jim]

If this is humor, and the fist-bump makes that a likely assumption, it falls afoul of Poe's law, that a satire of idiotic, prejudiced attitudes tends, for all practical purposes, to be indistinguishable from an exposition of idiotic, prejudiced attitudes.

I don't think it's going to turn out to be helpful. Not enough people have seen Michelle, or even know enough about Obama, to get the joke, and too many people, considering that half the population is below average intelligence, will see it and conclude that Barack Hussein and wife are Islamic terrorists.

Actually, I like it better every time I see it when I scroll up to check my spelling. It's mildly funny, but I still think it's more harmful than helpful.

[save_the_rustbelt]

With the except of college professors and calcified hippies, no one west of Manhattan reads the New Yorker anyway.

And most who do "read" it flip through and scan the cartoons.

Having said that, this is a really clumsy attempt at satire, or whatever.

PS: I do the fist bump with my pre-school grandsons, who call it "hit the rock."

[bakho]

They don't read the rag, but the cover still appears next to other newsrags on the stands. It isn't the fist bump. It is the burning flag that will set off the negative reaction.

And there were Obama supporters that swore up and down that he would never be swift boated.

The glovers are off. Time to go big time negative on McCain and the media.
What will be the response? A Dixie Chicks bonfire?

[jerry]

"And most who do "read" it flip through and scan the cartoons."

and often times fail to find those funny either.... And of course, according to the very famous new yorker cover, west of Manhattan is basically Japan and Russia and little else.

(Seriously, do a google image search on famous new yorker cover, or even just famous new yorker.)

(hey STR, I agree with you on many things, disagree on some, and congratulate you on your grandsons. Congrats dude.)

[jerry]

"It is the burning flag that will set off the negative reaction."

Bakho, at the risk of sounding naive, can you expand on that? The burning flag is the tell of course for those who get the joke. But how do you see this cover being used poorly? And who who thinks the burning flag is important will have been persuaded by this cover, and won't already have thought, uh, poorly, of Obama?

[jerry]

http://www.weirdasianews.com/2008/07/13/handless-man-uses-feet-to-repair-tires/

Wow. While we worry about Obama, and yes, this maybe off topic, FARK reminds me, once again, of the average human dilemna who suffers humiliation and can occasionally taste victory far beyond the Obamas. In this case, a human, in China, who earns his living by repairing bicycle tires. And who has no hands.

My hat is off to this individual. As f'd up as my live is, and without my daughters it's one f'd up life, I am vastly better off than this human being.

[save_the_rustbelt]

Jerry:

Thanks - grandsons are so cool, and spoiling them is now my greatest goal in life (and waiting on a granddaughter to spoil also).

[JFred]

I would never have guessed that it's supposed to be Michelle and Barack. It looks more like Angela Davis. Are you sure?

Anyway, New Yorker covers are normally obscure, unfunny, non-satirical, puzzling and often meaningless. Unless, of course, it's me that's not urban, hip, cynical, and better than enough other people. If so, I apologize in advance.

Also, you must consider the context. If it's really a New Yorker satire, then it must be a satire of right-wing attitudes toward the Obamas, not of them. I said if.

[PaulC]

"This cover will do nothing to aid the right wing"

Nonsense. It'll save at least one knuckledragger the effort of making their own cave painting. As Coates, pointed out, the biggest problem is that it is not really over the top enough and could be used without irony on a wingnut website. The fact that it will show up on newsstands is at least marginally worse than being limited to far right publicity.

It would surprise me if this image is not simply lifted, photoshopped, or imitated to further spread anti-Obama rumors. Not that it is especially good or anything, but it's out there, and somewhat better than the efforts of someone with absolutely no training in the visual arts.

The other problem, clearly, is that satire is supposed to have some wit. OK, there are lots of crazy hateful rumors about Obama. Got it. Knew that already.

[James Harrigan]

Please, Brad. "New Yorker Death Spiral"? This is the magazine that publishes some of the most important journalism of our time, with staff writers including Seymour Hersh, Elizabeth Kolbert, Jane Meyer, George Packer, Steve Coll, and of course Roger Angell. David Remnick, the editor, is a national treasure. You insult your own intelligence by claiming that a cover that you don't like is a "concession to right-wing wingnuttery".

[Both Barack Obama and John McCain agree with me on this, not with you...]

Our press corps would be in far better health if more publications emulated The New Yorker.

[sm]

Take a few deep breaths.

[M. Carey]

Remember when "Queer" was a slur? - It isnt any more.

[Kate G.]

Its like the new yorker, every now and then, has to apologize for its progressive and important political coverage by revealing its essential parochial stupidity--anyone remember the cover of the chassidic man kissing the black woman at the time of the jewish/black riots in new york? Yeah, that was another sterling example of narrow casting. The NY approached an artist and asked him to somehow provocatively address the racial and cultural tensions surrounding the death of a black child due to the negligent driving of the chassidic jews, and the rioting and violence that ensued, and he did a "romantic" cover which offended just about anyone alive and awake to the issues of sexism and racism in this society.

Put this picture down in the same vein. Its insulting to the liberal readership and, as Brad's first link points out, incredibly cowardly. Its the product, however, of a smugness that is really the hallmark of the New Yorker--an assumption that the only people who matter are the readership, and that the readership is already "in on the joke" that only the rubes see Michelle and Obama in this absurd light. Well, the fucking election isn't over yet--in fact, it hasn't actually been held yet, and the jury is out on just how stupid the american electorate is about race, class, and religious issues and how easily the rubes will be misled by the right wing on this important issue. So to the extent that the new yorker isn't sucessfully parodying and humiliating the outright lie that Obama and michelle are unamerican terrorist sympathizers they are just part of the problem. Its faux sophistication, the kind that pretends until after the fact taht elections don't matter and that its uncool to care. Well, fuck me, I do care.

Kate G.

[otto]

Alternatively, not from right wing nut land, see Mondoweiss:
'The New Yorker' Cover Is.... Genius!
I love the New Yorker cover. It shows that our politics may actually be more sophisticated than we thought; also it will quickly sort out anyone with a sense of humor from anyone without one (sadly, our great future president, Barack Obama, is in the latter camp). And as for anyone who says this will arm the enemies of Obama, you remind me of all the other p.c. strictures that have limited debate about the Middle East. Too much censorship. I welcome the cover as a signal that the pieties of the clash of civilizations and world war iv, which had a toehold inside the New Yorker itself, are coming to an end
http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2008/07/the-new-yorker-cover-is-genius.html#comments

[Tazistan Jen]

It does seem like pearl clutching to me. But then, I read The New Yorker.

[tedb]

This is the first time I have ever disagreed with a comment posted by Kate G. I think its high time we start laughing at the pitiful distortions of the right wing instead of being afraid of them. They're stupid and childish and undeserving of respect or fear.

Who said, "There's no such thing as bad publicity?" (Brendan Behan, according to Google.) This looks like a win for the New Yorker. Who knows? Maybe other non-NYers besides calcified hippies like myself (and college professors...) will try reading the magazine and seeing what all the fuss is about.

[kegler]

Drum accuses the satire of being "gutless" and his solution is to have the artist explain the joke.

Just imagine this approach applied to Election, the Larry Sanders Show, or Randy Newman's catalogue. Jeez.

[jerry]

http://www.killedcartoons.com/about_the_book.php

"America's "free press" isn't as free as you think. That's especially true for editorial cartoonists and illustrators. As members of a profession enshrined in the Constitution, visual journalists feel they have a responsibility to tell the truth as they see it. But in this age of fearful editors, government censorship, and media consolidation. controversial editorial art is frequently killed before publication.

And the situation has only gotten worse since 9-11.

Now, however, cartoonists—and the reading public—will get a second chance. In KILLED CARTOONS: CASUALTIES FROM THE WAR ON FREE EXPRESSION (W.W. NORTON), which features nearly 100 cartoons and illustrations, editor David Wallis gives you the chance to see what major magazines and newspapers tried to suppress. The collection, heralded by cartoonist Gahan Wilson of the New Yorker as "amazing in its range," includes spiked art about everything from the Iraq War to teen fashion trends. Works by renowned contemporary artists such as Garry Trudeau , Steve Brodner, Edward Sorel, Doug Marlette, Ted Rall, Paul Conrad, Matt Davies and Anita Kunz are displayed alongside unearthed gems by legends like David Low, Herblock and Norman Rockwell. "

With examples of killed cartoons at the link.

[jerry]

Brad,

Regarding the update, I think I need data before I listen to people who are not satirists or cartoonists tell me why a piece of satire or a cartoon falls flat and how to fix it.

And I hate to include this link, I really do, and in typical fashion she goes off the rails about half way through, but Malkin includes some cartoons from well known political cartoonists about Condi Rice that definitely go very very close to the edge of racist depictions of African Americans. http://michellemalkin.com/2008/07/14/grow-a-pair-obama/ Squick: finding I agree with Malkin on anything.

Also, I think it's worth noting that the cover, when stripped of the terrorist imagery, is actually a very complimentary treatment of the images of the Obamas themselves. Michelle is smiling. Barack is looking dignified. They are both looking at each other with evident love. Neither are drawn looking angry, or grossly out of proportion, or any of the techniques that artists can and do use to project our thoughts regarding their subjects. That aspect of the cover is actually gentle and respectful towards the Obama (and in ways that actual right wing depictions of them are not.)

[John]

.....the Larry Sanders Show, or Randy Newman's catalogue....

No, I'm sorry. Since too many people might get confused by the Larry Sanders Show...or the Stephen Colbert Show, well...those shows are just bad satire. Yeah, and Swift wasn't adequately over the top and well, his prose is boring so that is bad satire, too. And the TV show Batman..what horrible fight scenes and some people didn't get it was satire...so that is bad satire, too.

This complaining is so depressing, particularly in light of the excellent articles in the NYer about the Bush Administration...it (the intellectual shortsightedness) reminds me of the worst of sophomore year at the liberal arts college I attended. Like the failure to understand that the resemblence between Michelle Obama and Angela Davis might be precisely the point...

[dennisS]

The cover makes its satirical point well enough and I'm not afraid of rightwing talking heads abusing it. Without it they'd find something else to abuse and this "scandal" ultimately helps to defuse the willful misrepresentation of the Obamas by ridiculing not just the purveyors of these silly "rumors", but the eager consumers as well. Actually, I don't think they're rumors anymore. You'd have to live in a cave to not know how false the image represented on this cover is. This picture of the Obamas is a wish by a bunch of losers and the cartoon helps drive that point home.

-- Another calcified hippy.

PS. Before the controversy I would've bet only a few hundred individuals beyond the NYer readership would've seen the cover and their readership is familiar with this flavor of humor. But, with the uproar more will see it and will get some help tweaking up their irony detectors. I agree the NYer will get a few more subscribers out of this deal.

[kegler]

Worth pointing out that both The Poor Man and Sadly, No understand and have no problem with the cover.

Seriously Brad, what is your proposed solution? A moratorium on irony from everyone who supports Obama over the next four months?

Fafblog already posts so little. It'd be a shame to shut it down entirely.

[rea]

Remember when "Queer" was a slur? - It isnt any more.

Test that empirically, if you have good health insurance.

[JFred]

I was wrong. It's Michelle and Barack. The New Yorker has confessed. The cartoon is completely unfair to both candidates, but I like it anyway. Other than mis-drawing Barack's face, it's really cute. The body language matches the fist bump, which is hard to do in a cartoon.

The contradiction is that the New Yorker is both intelligent and predictable in it's politics.

[kegler]

I must have missed all the brilliant satires that Yeselson wrote.

There are no flashing lights to tell you that "Kicking Ass" by Fry and Laurie is satire. Ditto "Sail Away" by Randy Newman, a lot of skits by Stephen Colbert, "Send in the Marines" by Tom Lehrer, etc.

You really want political satire to revert to this? http://beatonna.livejournal.com/57906.html#cutid1

[STS]

Am I the only person who has ever noticed baseball players using that "fist bump" gesture? Batter reaches first base safely, fist bumps his first base coach.

What could be more "all American"?

[Tuco]

I will be satisfied when the New Yorker publishes a cover lampooning McCain as a prisoner of war. Non-partisan tastelessness.

[dennisS]

Fist Bump Datapoints: I (age 53, white, and atheistic) have been fist-bumping for years with my kids and even with my conservative evangelical work colleague. I can't remember where this silly/fun thing came from in my life, but I remember my religious friend re-training me on it, adding the "explosion" noise and jump-back as we both learned it from "The Office." Dangerous stuff. When Michelle and Barack jump back with the bump I'll know he really does have Wilco on his iPod. And if it doesn't happen, oh well, I'll try and adjust.

[Kate G.]

Tuco makes the point that was made, quite brilliantly, by a poster over at Kos, which I'll reprint here:

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

* JeffLieber's diary :: ::
*

Dear Barry:

Great idea, Barry! Great!

But let me try and make it even better. What if... ha-ha-ha... what if you drew a slave ship and sitting at one of the stations, chained to his seat, rowing like mad... was Barack Obama.

That would be VERY IRONIC and VERY BITING and INTELLECTUAL, because it could show how SOME see him as a descendant of the slave trade and therefore, like... property.

You know, like a washing machine!

Funny, right?

Hugs and kisses,

David

Dear David:

The slave ship thing is... my wife and I were HOWLING about it in bed last night.

But it gave me an even better idea.

What if the cover were an image from the south in like the 30's, right? And Barack Obama were running for his life? (I bet you can see where I'm going here!) And chasing Barack Obama where a bunch of Klu Klux Klan members, in their white sheets, carrying torches.

Wouldn't that be EDGY! And Ironic. So ironic! It could be about how SOME have seen this election about race-relations and how SOME are still dealing in the politics of hate!

I just think... ha-ha-ha... think that would be GREAT?!? You?

With admiration and class,

Barry

It continues in this vein and winds up with this hypothetical exchange:

Dear David:

Wait. Wait. This just came to me. What if the cover was NOT of Barack Obama, but of John McCain and the image was from a Vietnam POW camp and the North Vietnamese were torturing him. Knocking his teeth out and water-boarding him.

It could be an ironic commentary about how SOME feel about our OWN tactics during this war, right, and therefore extremely, extremely, funny.

Can't wait to go to work,

Barry

Dear Barry:

I'm sorry, but your last email really offended me. Can you imagine how John McCain's kids might react to such a cover filled with hateful imagery? Can you imagine how Republicans would react if we tried to get a laugh out of the Senator's pain?

Have you no sense of decency, sir?

Look, just go with a cover of Barack and Michelle Obama in the Oval Office. He's in Kenyan garb and she looks like a militant, gun toting black radical. Put a burning American flag in the fireplace and a photo of Osama Bin Laden above the hearth.

You know... subtle... non-inflammatory.

Because, in the end, we can't take a chance that we would stir up hate.

David.

To conclude: this image is only funny if the New Yorker's assumption is that no one but highly educated democrats who are aware of all internet traditions---I mean, aware of all republican rat fucking on the Obama front--are the only viewers. Oddly enough, the world isn't entirely composed of new yorker reading democrats. Its actually composed of a shit load of other people who are thinking about who to vote for. If this was meant to be a commentary on the politically motivated lies the right wing is circulating--and it is--the "title" of the piece needed to be somewhere unembedded in the text. Or, as others have pointed out, the source of the images needed to be put front and center--an email from Karl Rove, a bubble over McCain's head, or a radio spot from rush limbaugh. because these images and ideas aren't, in fact, free floating and they need to be tied to their authors. If you are so caught up in your own coolness that you think the issue is those who "get" it and those who don't, well, you are simply as deluded as the New Yorker or the New York woman who famously said, bewildered, "no one I know voted for Richard Nixon." We are at war, here, in this election between the know nothings and the rest of us. And every step backwards, or every yielding to their framing or their language that isn't a brutal skewering of it, is a waste of time. Posturing for its own sake. That, to me, is why the cartoon fails. Its not funny because it isn't challenging. Its pandering to an upper class/democrats/elites sense of security, sense of being with it while others are not. the cartoon says that the world is diveded into rubes and not rubes. The joke is one someone else, not us, because we just know that none of this is true of Michelle and Obama (I read the new yorker religiously so I include myself in the target market). Well, that isn't very insightful or thoughtful and it doesn't push anyone's buttons so it can't be satire. We know what we know, and yet the lies wag merrilly along. Satire would be too brutal to be absorbed in this way. As for the lower threshold--is it funny? It could be funny, I suppose, if your ego is so weak that you get a kick out of being assured you are in with the in crowd. In that way its as funny as when everyone hastens to applaud when someone drops a tray in the lunchroom. Its just a cowardly association with the temporarily dominant pack.

Kate G.

[jerry]

Kathy,

Some points to consider. When you say "we are at war here", others have noted that it's not in the New Yorker's mission statement to work for the Obama campaign. Presumably they have some journalistic mission they prefer to fulfill instead.

Also, I am pretty sure that other people apart from us saw the various Obama hit pieces and even their debunkings that you seem to feel only the net cognoscenti can understand. -- You can't fool all the people all the time. Stop worrying so much about what the little people who aren't as hip and cool as you are thinking, because it makes you seem all elitist and bitter.

One of the arguments that will just never work, whether it comes from you, Kathy or Kevin or Matthew is the argument of "it wasn't funny, but here when I rewrite it, it is funny." Because funny and even satire are in the head of the beholder and until you can show us your writing credentials, or political cartoonist credentials, all this line of argument does is point out why no one hires you to write satire for them.

[kegler]

Kate: You're criticizing the cartoon for not being "challenging" while saying it needs to be much more obvious. You're telling other people that they have ego problems for liking the joke, then saying we're "at war with the know nothings".

And you're suggesting that the election is so important that everyone shares an obligation towards message discipline. One that means not producing satire or sarcasm if it could be possibly misunderstood as sincere. Which means ALL satire and sarcasm.

I'm not ready for the four month moratorium on The Daily Show and The Onion, myself.

The pasquinades over the powerful!

[Lee A. Arnold]

It's silly and stupid -- but with 3 months to go, its sentiments will be boring old news by the time of the election, and so it will likely serve to inoculate the candidate against these same prejudices.

Obama could turn it to advantage right now by saying something very quick and funny about it, and very short and serious about the prejudices it presumes to satirize.

Indeed this sort of thing is a Godsend -- the perfect opportunity to reach out, be human, and put a dent in the stuck poll numbers.

P.S. I haven't bought or read a New Yorker in over 20 years, and still more of this middlebrow cuteness doesn't tempt me!

[jerry]

Obama could turn it to advantage right now by saying something very quick and funny about it, and very short and serious about the prejudices it presumes to satirize.

Intriguingly, that's what Ann Althouse said, and I think she and her band of nutjobs were pretty on top of this one:

"Of course, Obama has to push it aside and can scarcely laugh about it.

Or, maybe, I don't know... maybe it would work to laugh. He's been awfully uptight about things lately. And laughing conveys the instant recognition that it's absurd. Why be surly about it? McCain's supposed to be the cranky guy..."

[jeff hoffman]

My first thought when I saw this was that I didn't know Maureen Dowd did cartoons.

[jeff hoffman]

It must have been a mistake. That's a Black couple in a New Yorker cartoon.

[Lee A. Arnold]

Actually, Obama gets good laughs in his speeches. He was humorous about Phil Gramm's comment. He should do more of it.

I've never read Althouse but I see no compelling reason why "Obama has to push it aside and can scarcely laugh about it."

That would in fact kill his campaign. People want to vote for a President somebody they would enjoy having over for dinner.

[Movie Guy]

Brad,

You're swinging after the pitch.

The damage, if any, has already been done. Highlighting it will draw more attention. But that is what the news media and certain web logs have done on this day.

Bury it and move on. Otherwise, this will catch negative traction.

[mere mortal]

Rich Yeselson's comment is exactly correct. For this satire to be effective, it must be framed within some right wing context. My first thought was that it should have been some sort of FOX "News" anchor pointing at the portrait as a TV insert. McCain text bubble is close enough.

However, standing alone it is simply offensive. Not hip, not "smarter than you" not "hipper than you", just offensive.

What are the long odds on survival, Dr. DeLong? With this cover, I'll take the Washington Post over the New Yorker. At least the Post doesn't kick its own readers in their junk during election season...

... well, at least not so obviously.

[Kate G.]

Jerry,
my name isn't "kathy" and despite what you think I don't write under that pseudonym, but rather under a different one.

Also, I don't think the "challenging" part of my comment refers to *difficulty of grasping* since there is no way this cartoon can ever challenge in that way, but with something else with is difficulty of attributing authorship or intent. Actually almost all (but not all) new yorker cartoons require captions--I draw your attention to the caption contest at the back and what makes that whole process interesting is the way different captions bring different parts of the images into focus. No caption is invariably less than funny, some captions throw things into such sharp relief that you roll on the floor with laughter.

This one has a directed meaning, sure, in that it *has* a caption, albeit one that most readers never notice since it has a title but you never see the title. In other words, the authors themselves aren't sure that this picture is as clear as it needs to be--clarity and challenge to the reader aren't, in fact, opposed. Challenge refers to the feelings they bring up in the reader, or the deeper truth revealed that had previously been hidden from the reader.

Most of the covers are kind of oblique or imagistic and although I read the new yorker every week I was unaware that they had titles. This one is simply, to my mind, dull. I'm not worried that "The right wing" will use it. I just think its insultingly stupid because of its free floating refusal to assign accountability for these accusations against both obama and his wife, and therefore (to my mind) the refusal to take an actual stand on the truth or falsity of the accusations. Yes, I don't think its funny. Like I haven't thought many of the front page cartoons were funny. I also don't think its thought provoking since the assumption is that you "get it" or you "don't get it" due to your priviliged position in society. We are to believe the rubes don't get it, so when we do we are able to laugh at them.

On some level I do think that putting it up there at that level may lance this boil. By the time a nasty rumor gets all the way to the cover of the New Yorker you might say the rumor itself has jumped the shark and even the top level purvyeors of the rumors--like Instapundit and the rest of the right wing crew--must scurry back under their rocks and pretend they were doing something else. The thing they hate most is being caught out in their dual lives caring about what the New YOrker thinks about them and also pretending they live in flyover country. We'll have to wait and see. But again I call the cartoon out for cowardice, for assuming that the rumors just exist without attribution. We have this discussion all the time about Ann Coulter's work, its nothing new to say that the difference between good political satire and mere bullying is one's position in the status quo. The new yorker actually thinks its making a sardonic, ironic, satirical commentary on the current political scene? Lets see them do it with something less ambiguous or something more offensive to the right wing and then we can judge.

Kate G.

[Colin Danby]

How do you deal with the loony alternative realities behind the accusations the cartoon satirizes -- or, behind, say, Grover Norquist's economics? One approach is scrupulous fact-checking and logic-following and, inevitably, banging your head against the wall because your opponents don't recognize those rules. Another is exemplified by Stephen Colbert -- a gleeful inhabiting of the alternative reality which surfaces its underlying paranoia and resentment. Brad's preference is clear and admirable, but Colbert and Blitt may be just as useful in breaking the spell cast by these accusations.

[jhe]

As a fairly long-time subscriber to the New Yorker (and survivor of the Tina Brown era- and a resident of the Midwest - and neither a calcified hippie nor a college professor ) I have to say that I got a chuckle out of the cover (results from the rest of the microscopic focus group: my wife disagrees and is completely on-board with the rest of you).

The New Yorker cover is always an in-joke that makes little sense out of the context of it's being a New Yorker cover. Since I'm clinging on to the lower rungs of the hipness ladder I have occasionally struggled to tease out the joke, but then along comes the annual Eustace Tilly cover and I feel better again.

By the way, my favorite description of the New Yorker came from a John Leonard book review in the NYT -

...the preferred periodical of an educated American middle class that wanted regular reminding of its cozy status and an early radar warning against sneak attacks by the avant-garde.

Seriously, this is not one to lose sleep over.

[European Fellow]

Irony is ALWAYS about context. Most of the articles from LaRouche newsletter would be satires anywhere else. Lots of right-wing gung-ho material would be satirical in The Nation's letter page. The point of irony is usually might fun of somebody else's idea.

I'm happy Janis Joplin didn't think "oh, somebody might use 'Mercedes Benz' in a Mercedes Benz ad". Or Randy Newman didn't think "oh, somebody might be offended by the song 'Short People', oh". I'm happy we have these works. Authors of satire could not make any work with that kind of criteria. There is always some other context -ever for Modest Proposals- where somebody might take it seriously. Irony is a risky business.

[piotr]

So the chief complain is that while it is nigh impossible to imagine a New Yorker reader getting ideas from the cartoon that are offensive to Obama, Democratic ideals, democratic ideals etc., the cartoon is also seen by non-New Yorker readers.

The latter are a stunted breed. Some, on the reactionary part of the spectrum, get an evil chortle out of it, and some, on the progressive side, conniptions.

I say, surrender and subscribe.

[jerry]

Kate G, no, your name is not Kathy, and yeah, that was really dumb of me.

There apparently is a Kate G and a Kathy G out there blogging and commenting, and I gather it is Kathy G from The G Spot who came by this blog one day and signed her post, aimai, and I thought that was you, and you have my apologies.

[jerry]

Oops, Kate G, I've got it sorted out now.

http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2008/05/new-york-time-3.html#comment-114436636

Kate G IS aimai, who you are not is Kathy G from the G spot.

Again, apologies all around, and I'll try to keep you sorted out better. By the way, did you read Sandra Tsing Loh's column in the Atlantic? You might find it really interesting, and maybe enlightening, if not sad and funny. (You too Brad, a common error you make is highlighted in Loh's essay as well.) http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/working-moms

[jerry]

Harvey Silverglate, cofounder of FIRE blogs at "The Free For All". He is also the criminal law and civil liberties columnist for the Boston Phoenix, and was first litigation counsel to the EFF. He has taught at Harvard Law, been on the board of the ACLU of Massachusetts and coauthored, Shadow University, the Betrayal of Liberty on America's Campuses. "This book shows how the best aspects of the 1960's -- free speech, equality of rights, respect for private conscience, and a sense of undergraduate liberties and adult responsibilities -- have died on our campuses. What is left of that heady decade are its worst part: self-appointed "progressives" who seek to enforce moral and political orthodoxies through abuse and coercion rather than reason. In a nation whose future depends upon an education in freedom, colleges and universities are teaching the values of censorship, self-censorship, and self-righteous abuse of power."

http://thephoenix.com/BLOGS/freeforall/archive/2008/07/15/if-obama-really-had-guts-he-would-have-a-press-conference-that-goes-something-like-this.aspx

If Obama really had guts, he would have a press conference that goes something like this:

By Harvey Silverglate,

My wife and I wish to commend the staff of The New Yorker. They have finally realized that the level of political rhetoric in this country has fallen so low that the only appropriate response is satire. There is no way that I could have possibly responded to my critics and detractors as effectively as has the artist who drew that cover. It demonstrates once again that a picture is worth more than a thousand words.

I’ve been unable to convince the nation that I am not a Muslim, for one thing. Now, mind you, I would not feel ashamed if I were a Muslim. It would be a sad day in America if citizens have to be ashamed of their religious beliefs and affiliations. But my hidden critics and enemies are seeking to ‘tar’ me with the brush of being a Muslim. And somehow that rumor takes on a life of its own. I hesitate to even deny it, because one should be proud to be a Muslim in America, much as Catholics are proud, Protestants are proud, Jews are proud, Buddhists are proud, Scientologists are proud – but you get the point. However, facts and truth seem not to matter in the realm of the Political Attack Machine, or perhaps I should call it the Hate Machine.

And this Hate Machine spares not even my better half. Vile whispers have cast Michelle as a modern-day 1960s black radical, carrying with her the racial hatred that any sensible person would have long ago rejected. Will my children be the next objects of these attack dogs? We can only hold our breath and wait and see.

So when unreality begins to take over reality, and truth and facts cease to matter, our only effective remaining weapons are satire and parody. My wife would never carry an AK-47 assault rifle, just as she would never carry the racial hostility so readily placed upon her shoulders. I would never burn an American flag (although I believe that such burning is and should continue to be constitutionally protected by our First Amendment), but a lack of lapel pins signals, to some, a “lack of patriotism.” Sadly, such is the reality of our political culture in 2008. Far from advancing racist ideology, The New Yorker has well served the national dialogue by, at long last, exposing the ludicrous – and evil – underbelly of the Hate Machine.

If you want to understand the importance of parody and satire in the life of a free nation, you cannot do better than to sit down and read the Supreme Court’s unanimous 1987 opinion in the historic case of Hustler v. Falwell, found at 485 U.S. 46. It was written, interestingly, by the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, not always a friend to freedom. But in the realm of protection of satire and parody as an essential method by which social and political evils may be effectively exposed and criticized, the justices were unanimous in joining the Rehnquist opinion. In that case, the justices ruled that the First Amendment protected Hustler Magazine’s vicious parody directed at the now-deceased Reverend Jerry Falwell. Hustler publisher Larry Flynt suggested that the good reverend experienced his first sexual encounter in a drunken orgy with his mother in an outhouse. Not only was this vicious satire deemed constitutionally protected, but the court went on to review the importance of satire and parody in the American political discourse from the very earliest days of the founding of the Republic. Many of the satires and parodies that helped advance American political life were as or more biting even than The New Yorker’s well-crafted assault on my and my wife’s cowardly whispering critics who spread anonymous rumors rather than announce their lies openly.

Long live satire! Long live parody! Long live truth! May God bless you all, and our beloved United States of America which, I have the duty to advise you, is in some trouble if The New Yorker suffers for telling the truth with such moral clarity and, even more importantly, good humor.

And, oh yes, one more thing: Please remember to vote!

[Aaron]

The picture is racist, not klu klux klan racist, more just a white upper class liberal well educated kind of racism. I'm on the right and they say they are dipicting me. Leave me out of, I can't ever draw for gods sake!