Obama attacks The New Yorker:
Could it just be a political strategy?
Scott Stewart
Issue date: 7/22/08 Section: Opinion
If you turned on TV news early last week, it would have been difficult for you not to hear about the now-infamous cover of July 21 issue of The New Yorker magazine.
Odds are good, too, that you heard pundits denounce the cover as tasteless, offensive and possibly racist. Even liberal commenter like Keith Olbermann of MSNBC jumped on the bandwagon.
Better TV news outlets, and most print outlets, noted that The New Yorker's official reply was that the cover was satire. Which, of course, it was, since not only does the magazine show a consistent contempt for right-wing politics, but also the illustrator, Barry Blitt, has done several political cartoon covers over the years.
Last week's cartoon shows presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama dressed as a Middle Easterner, fist-bumping his wife, who wears an assault rifle and military fatigues. The scene is in the Oval Office, where a portrait of Osama bin Laden hangs in the background above a fireplace where Old Glory burns.
Previous Blitt covers include former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being approached in a men's room in the manner of Sen. Larry Craig (Oct. 8, 2007); Vice President Dick Cheney getting his blood pressure read according to the Department of Homeland Security's colored threat level scale (Aug. 30, 2004); and President Bush playing a maid to Cheney in "The Odd Couple" (Dec. 5, 2005).
Whether Blitt's cartoon is offensive is hardly worth considering. Yes, of course it is; it's meant to be. By being offensive, the cartoon shows how deplorable the right-wing smears on Obama are. It would be no different than if Blitt had depicted Obama as a slave, calling attention to the racism implicit in other smears against Obama's character.
What is worth attention is something few in the media are recognizing: Obama's campaign could have, and should have, thanked The New Yorker for ridiculing the same lies that have forced the campaign to establish fightthesmears.com.
Odds are good, too, that you heard pundits denounce the cover as tasteless, offensive and possibly racist. Even liberal commenter like Keith Olbermann of MSNBC jumped on the bandwagon.
Better TV news outlets, and most print outlets, noted that The New Yorker's official reply was that the cover was satire. Which, of course, it was, since not only does the magazine show a consistent contempt for right-wing politics, but also the illustrator, Barry Blitt, has done several political cartoon covers over the years.
Last week's cartoon shows presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama dressed as a Middle Easterner, fist-bumping his wife, who wears an assault rifle and military fatigues. The scene is in the Oval Office, where a portrait of Osama bin Laden hangs in the background above a fireplace where Old Glory burns.
Previous Blitt covers include former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being approached in a men's room in the manner of Sen. Larry Craig (Oct. 8, 2007); Vice President Dick Cheney getting his blood pressure read according to the Department of Homeland Security's colored threat level scale (Aug. 30, 2004); and President Bush playing a maid to Cheney in "The Odd Couple" (Dec. 5, 2005).
Whether Blitt's cartoon is offensive is hardly worth considering. Yes, of course it is; it's meant to be. By being offensive, the cartoon shows how deplorable the right-wing smears on Obama are. It would be no different than if Blitt had depicted Obama as a slave, calling attention to the racism implicit in other smears against Obama's character.
What is worth attention is something few in the media are recognizing: Obama's campaign could have, and should have, thanked The New Yorker for ridiculing the same lies that have forced the campaign to establish fightthesmears.com.
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