New Yorker

Since it's the controversy of the day, let me make my views more clear. It obviously was an attempt at satire, but it fails. It represents the basic stuff that you get from the Right about Obama, but it neither mocks nor exaggerates them. It's a sad state of affairs that conservatives are hard to satirize or parody because they're so insane, but that's where we are. The only context is that it's on the cover of the New Yorker and Everybody Knows That They're Good Liberals So It's Satire. But, look, whatever the merits of the New Yorker it's more "elite chattering classes of New York" than "good liberal." Not quite the same thing, even if there's some overlap.

Had the Sadlynaughts created that cover it could've been funny because they have a long history of mocking right wing lunacy, though had they created something like that it would have been much more over the top because the lunatic right is much more over the top about Obama.

The New Yorker cover could have worked if had made more clear who it was satirizing (Fox news, the Republican party, Rush Limbaugh, whatever), or by being clever enough to provide the actual funny. As it is it's just a reflection of the Right's view of Obama, but there's nothing clever or funny about it. The cartoon could run as is on the cover of the National Review, also meaning to be "funny" but with a different target.

All of this doesn't make the New Yorker public enemy #1, just makes them idiots of the week.


...and the Doughy Pantload says:

What I find interesting about the New Yorker cover is that it's almost exactly the sort of cover you could expect to find on the front of National Review.