D R I F T G L A S S Absolutely Nails It

This is exactly what I was talking about:



That one visual statement represents the entire argument for me. The New Yorker cover basically handed out a free smear for the mouth breathers, and that's inexcuseable. They've had enough handouts from the frickin' media already.

If You Have Nothing Invested in Any of This, Of Course it's Funny to You

This is typical of many of the reactions to the Obama cover from the New Yorker--Ann Althouse spends a portion of her day mocking the outrage:

And Kevin Drum is all at first I thought it was kinda funny....

But at the risk of seeming humorless, that reaction didn't last too long. Maybe it's because this kind of satire just doesn't work, no matter how well it's done. But mostly it's because a few minutes thought convinced me it was gutless. If artist Barry Blitt had some real cojones...

What is this fascination with balls? Jesse Jackson wants to cut Obama's, which presumes their existence. Michelle Malkin thinks they don't exist. Kevin Drum thinks they don't exist on Blitt — they've been oblitterated — though they may somehow exist in fake — or un-Spanish — form. But if Blitt had had real cojones...

... he would have drawn the same cover but shown it as a gigantic word bubble coming out of John McCain's mouth — implying, you see, that this is how McCain wants the world to view Obama. But he didn't. Because that would have been unfair.

Uh... no... because it would have been absurdly cluttered, stupid looking, and hard to draw. Not to mention clunkily literal and no fun at all. Blitt lacks balls because he assumes we have brains?

There's no context provided in the illustration. It's just the Obamas, with stereotypes and smears, and no context is provided. That's why the reaction has been so visceral. Many people have claimed a kind of phony omniscience, as in, "oh, I got it, it was funny, I wasn't taken aback." No, sorry--it's a classic example of being too clever by half while forgetting to make a point. Shock without context is sensationalism. People are so scared of being portrayed as un-hip, they'll say anything after the fact, or just keep quiet about it.

Funny things appear every day, but when something is unfunny to people because they see it as a smear, a confirmation of stereotypes, or the repeating of lies told to win elections, they get a little edgy and upset about it.

Now, funny is the idea Althouse believes her own lost and wandering ideas. She thinks it's amusing to watch the outrage--that's because, despite whatever affiliation she tries to identify herself with to deflect criticism, she has nothing invested in the success of Barack Obama and everything invested in having things be amused with. She has nothing invested in fixing what the Bush Administration has been frantically breaking for the last seven and a half years. It's entertaining to her--she's practically in the last throes of withdrawal at the idea this might stop.

--WS

No, It's Not Satire--it's a Smear

Well, this isn't even remotely funny:

The Obama campaign is condemning as “tasteless and offensive” a New Yorker magazine cover that depicts Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in a turban, fist-bumping his gun-slinging wife.

An American flag burns in their fireplace.

The New Yorker says it's satire. It certainly will be candy for cable news.

The Obama campaign quickly condemned the rendering. 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."

It's the kind of smear that falls flat. These are two people who, for lack of a better way to describe it, are far more representative of how real Americans live their lives than, I dunno...John and Cindy McCain? For starters, the Obamas can use computers and go to soccer games.

When do we get to see the cover with McCain, red-faced and enraged, with a cartoon bubble next to his mouth, calling Cindy a cunt as she pops pills in one of their seven homes and racks up $500,000 on the AMEX? Better yet, let's not see that. No one needs this kind of garbage. Plus, Michelle Obama's hair is fantastic--the depiction of her hair on this cover is the outrage of the week.

--WS