Outrage Up to 11!

Jesus, people, would you get a grip? Apparently there is bipartisan outrage over this week's very amusing New Yorker cover:

Obviously the New Yorker, that bastion of shoddy journalism and fist-bumping reactionaries, is hell-bent on destroying America. And apple pie. Hell, they probably want to restrict the franchise... Oh, hang on...

Ben Smith reports that according to:

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton: "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."

Most readers will, of course, not be half as stupid as the Obama campaign apprently considers them to be. Not to be left behind in the Stupid Outrage Stakes, McCain's mob responds, perhaps with less than 100% honesty,  "We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it's tasteless and offensive."

Eve Fairbanks, who is normally sane and insightful (and talented!) frets that, "a reader would have to have a fairly sophisticated understanding... to immediately intuit the intended ironic distance."

Well, people, this is the fucking New Yorker. Apologies, if you need 'em, for the cussing but there's no facility for double italics. Of course it's funny. Of course the intended audience gets it. Of course this ludicrous reaction to all this is yet more witless nonsense. Everyone who's played a part in whipping it up should be ashamed of themselves. What next? Censorship?

Meanwhile Ryan Lizza's accompanying article on Obama in Chicago, which merits due consideration in its own good time, is one of the very best things I've ever read about the Senator from Illinois. Read that, I suggest, and ignore this nonsense.

Also consider that a cartoon of this nature is exactly the sort of thing winning politicians put on their walls once they've attained the office they've been aiming for all these many years...

Comments

[ndm]

Matthew Yglesias nails it:

The problem, though, is that the actually existing whispering campaign against Obama is so severe that it doesn't really admit of satire-by-exaggeration.

[deiseach]

Because only the intended audience will see it. No chance that Rush Limbaugh will be saying "and even those whiny liberals over at the Jew Yorker think Obama is a terrorist".

[Jordan Lawrence]

I think I'll have to agree with comic writer Matt Fraction when he says the cover is offensive because it's a terrible cartoon.
Matt Fraction @ Twitter.