I get satire. Anyone who knows me knows I love my daily dose of the Daily Show or Stephen Colbert, I loved "In Living Color" for its brilliance and I've been a fan of SNL for years. So why don't I get this particular brand of satire by The New Yorker?
I got this story like many Americans on the various morning shows today and I kept mulling it over to see whose side I could take. After thinking about the story for the past few hours (with emergencies with my laptop), I'll say this, it is not the New Yorker's. This is simply a misstep on the word "satire."
Satire is NOT something you need to explain to people to get it as the New Yorker's editor was doing today on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" or MSNBC live. People normally get it as I posted here on "Baracknophobia." The problem with this cover is that many Americans are not familiar with this publication called "the New Yorker." This is normally not a magazine you find on their coffee tables. I'm not one of those Americans but I feel this image (with no words of what the picture was all about) will perpetuate the fears the editor was saying on the morning shows he was trying to bring to light.
Seriously Mr. Editor! A picture of Michelle Obama resembling the 60s to 70s black icon militant Angela Davis only with the AK 47 strapped to her back (which made it worse). Then you have Sen. Barack Obama in the turban that caused so much fuss early this year though he was only wearing his heritage of Kenya's outfit (which all dignitaries do by the way).
And the items go on with the American Flag (which Obama has caught unnecessary flak for not wearing a lapel pin) burning up in the fireplace and America's most notorious terrorist, Osama Bin Ladin (how many people have been caught with the intentional or unintentional slip-up by replacing the "b" in Obama for the "s" in Osama?) Way to go Editor! What a great job you have done to really scare straight middle and southern Americans who see this cover all over the screens and in their bookstores to NOT vote for Obama.
Isn't this ironic that the left leaning magazine is really the one sabotaging the Presidential Democratic Nominee's chances? The right has publicly condemned the magazine's cover as tasteless. Read that last sentence one more time because it is true. But in my mind I can't help but wonder if the "right" isn't secretly rejoicing for manna from heaven for folks rushing to their base even if they don't agree with its Nominee's views.
Tags: The New Yorker
