Satire or Smear?

14 July 2008 |permalink | email article

THE July 21 cover of The New Yorker depicts Barack Obama in a turban, fist-bumping his gun-slinging wife in the Oval Office. And, yes, there is an American flag burning in the fireplace.

The magazine says the cover satirizes “the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the Presidential election to derail Barack Obama’s campaign.” Really?

David Remnick, The New Yorker editor, told Howard Kurtz, the media critic for The Washington Post, that “it is satire, they are making fun of all the rumors.”

Kurtz didn’t buy it, suggesting that the cover is arguably “incidentary.” Howard, kill the adverb.

The Obama campaign said the cover “is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create.”

The McCain campaign, to its credit, e-mailed this response: “We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it’s tasteless and offensive.”

The lazy dog days of August have come a little early this year, much to the glee of cable news would-be pundits who will now have something to munch on until the conventions.

As a New Yorker subscriber for 40 years I know and appreciate satire when I see it. I also know when satire crosses the line and becomes a vicious racial and religious smear against the nation’s first African American presidential nominee. 

Quote of the Day

“Um, yeah. For instance, take, you know, take for instance, the issue of – I’m drawing a blank, and I hate it when I do that, particularly on television.” – Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and a top VP prospect, drawing a blank when asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer about whether there are significant differences between what the Bush administration has put forward and what McCain supports?

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