What Was The New Yorker Thinking?

As someone that has been in the world for a few years or so, I've learned what satire is. The more you read the news, the easier it gets to look at satirical pieces and know what they are. So I knew that the New Yorker cover coming out on stands today was meant to be in jest. The only problem is that doing satire on a national level is kind of like shuffleboard. You gotta slide the disk with just enough force to put it in the 10 spot. If you push too hard, it ends up at the back of the board and you get a zero, or worse, end up in negative territory. That is exactly what this cover did.

From Editor and Publisher:

If it was meant to be provocative -- it succeeded. The cover of this week's New Yorker features Baack Obama in Muslim garb, with his gun-toting Afro-ed wife, an American flag burning in the fireplace. It has already drawn laughs -- while being denounced by the Obama campaign, and by John McCain, and many Obama supporters. The artists says it was merely meant to make fun of rightwing depictions of Obama and his wife. Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement: “The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

So do I.

I get it that the right wing is ridiculously tasteless and racist for hitting Obama in the way the cartoonist satirized it all. The only problem is it went way too far. On top of that, it gave the McCain campaign a chance to denounce it as well, even though they are in favor (and indirectly use) against Barack Obama.

The insane thing about it is that the article inside is a good piece about the campaign, it is just the cover that ruins it all.