Do you think the New Yorker Obama cover is funny and positive or disgraceful and negative?

[Colobo]

Vote.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

1. It only helps Obama if he laughs at it

The campaign erred is calling it tasteless and offensive. They should have said it was a funny as hell portrait of the FOX News mentality.

Sounds like a spokesman called the wrong shot. (Sunday night... the A-team isn't manning the store)

Obama should make a point tomorrow of saying he thought it was funny.

Everyone likes people with a sense of humour.

[Colobo]

3. He's not laughing at it... at least so far...

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

6. Yeah, I added to the reply in light of that

[BlooInBloo]

9. Indeed. Black people should always laugh when white people depict them as terrorists...

and as black panthers.

Or else they have no sense of humor.

[IntravenousDemilo]

14. (sigh)

[cliffordu]

16. That's right -

I wonder if this has given every racist, Fox 'news' talking head, "Limited Information Voter" and bigot all the visual proof they need to get it wrong. Completely, totally wrong.

"New Yorker, isn't that a LIBERAL publication?" (leer)....

If the New Yorker thinks this kind of thing is funny, why no pictures of 'Pork Soda' featuring Mohammed?

[Goblinmonger]

18. Come on Bloo

you know that's not the point of the cartoon. Stop being deliberately obtuse.

[BlooInBloo]

21. As if "the point of the cartoon" were the only thing that mattered...

Remind me again which of us is being "deliberately obtuse?

[Goblinmonger]

25. It does matter

when your subject line talks about how white people DEPICT blacks. The white person drawing this cartoon (I'm assuming from your post that the artist is white; I don't know for sure myself) was not DEPICTING him that way. Quite the opposite actually. Sorry that I was taking you for the words you were using.

[BlooInBloo]

27. I used the words I did correctly.

[Goblinmonger]

31. So do you think the intent was not satirical? n/t

[BlooInBloo]

36. We're not communicating....

Maybe this will help, but I doubt it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=6496066&mesg_id=6496144

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. Neither, but it's clearly satirical.

You'd have to be pretty dense not to see that.

[mucifer]

5. It's satirical. But, it's another campaign distraction which he doesn't need right now.

This crap always grabs more headlines than the economy and the wars. It's gonna be looped. Right wing media will have a ball with this.

And yes the actual cartoon is funny. But, it doesn't matter. That's not the point.

[BuyingThyme]

4. It's an accurate depiction of the picture being painted by the insane.

[Bennyboy]

7. It's the New Yorker......

And if this is the first time you have been offended by one of their covers then you are living a sheltered life. I get it.

[HereSince1628]

8. It doesn't matter how I think about it...

it's how the public will react when the media turns it into a circus.


We may be lucky...the upcoming crash of the US banking industry will divert everyone's attention

[mucifer]

10. Exactly! And the crash of the banking industry will never be as important in the media

as stuff like this magazine cover.

This country is very sick.

I wish everyone could understand the humor from the cover of the magazine. But, unfortunately that's not gonna happen.

[NRaleighLiberal]

11. To me, just a sign of continued breakdown of meaningful discourse, and a miscalculation

of the overall patience, intellect, understanding and sophistication of the American public. Actually, I am so utterly sick and fed up of pretty much everything these days - from Bush's complete contempt for anything except for himself and his cronies, his ignorance, the sorry condition of the health care situation for so many - I am on disaster overload, and really do think that the country - the world - is headed for, and perhaps needs, some sort of cataclysmic wake up call. Just when I thought that things can't get worse, or more ludicrous, they do. I am on overload. So I will not vote in any of these polls, I won't react to what is just continued lunacy.....here ends the rant.

[eleny]

12. It ridicules the Obamas instead of the iditos who believe those portrayals

[MonkeyFunk]

15. Nope

it ridicules the people who send those smears. It's just absurd to think they're actually portraying the Obamas as radical muslim terrorists.

People have lost all sense of perspective.

[eleny]

17. But that's not how it will be used

We're going to need to wait for tomorrow and see how it's handled by the likes of FoxNews. And you better believe that they will use it against Obama. This is too ripe an opportunity.

Heck, last night I was going around the radio dials and there was Michael Medved asserting that Obama was a fascist because of his public service initiative.

[KingFlorez]

19. It's not clear at all

I get the point of what they are trying to say, but it just doesn't clearly say satire, it looks like something some right-wing publication would put out.

[MonkeyFunk]

22. It doesn't have to say "satire"

IT'S THE COVER OF THE NEW FUCKING YORKER!!!!

[Colobo]

24. Do you think the average American will read it as satire? Honestly.

[MonkeyFunk]

26. sigh

the Average American won't ever see it.

And yes, a person of average intelligence would immediately see it as mocking the right-wing smears against Obama. I wish we had more such people here.

[Colobo]

29. They will see it. Bill O'Reilly and the other hacks will show it to them.

[MonkeyFunk]

30. Maybe

I doubt it, though, since it mocks them, and not the Obamas. Of course, a good way to get the news channels to cover it is to create a huge fucking melodramatic thing out of it on discussion boards.

[Colobo]

32. They'll spin it so bad you can't even imagine... that's what they are there for.

[KingFlorez]

28. You completely missed my point

I didn't mean it had to say the words "satire", I meant the cartoon itself wasn't drawn in a way that made it clear right-wingers were being mocked. That was my point, but you conveniently missed it.

[Goblinmonger]

33. So you think the New Yorker

thinks Obama burns flags? Other than "SATIRE" in neon orange, I don't think there was much more he could have done.

[Colobo]

37. It doesn't matter what the New Yorker thinks. What matters is what

Joe Blow will think when O'Reilly and Hannity and the other shitheads at Fox News start spinning this to bring back the memories of Jeremiah Wright and all that shit.

[Goblinmonger]

38. But the shitheads already believe that stuff.

This cartoon won't change anything there. Maybe the cartoon will help with the uncommitted moderates who do get it?

[KingFlorez]

39. The magazine's intent isn't what I was questioning

The bottom line is, this cover is not going to be perceived the way they intended it to be, that's all I'm saying.

[MonkeyFunk]

46. sorry

people who read the New Yorker will get it.

they don't sell it at the Piggly Wiggly checkout, so your concerns are overstated.

[AZBlue]

35. Do you think Average Joe American understands that?

I'd bet money they don't.
And I don't have money to bet, but this would be a sure-thing.

[MonkeyFunk]

47. The average Joe American doesn't read the New Yorker

and neither do most people here, evidently.

[Colobo]

13. Kick.

[jkshaw]

20. I don't think "the average American"

reads the New Yorker. But this cover is nevertheless highly offensive to people who do read the New Yorker and expects more sense out of them. Not to mention sensitivity. Satire indeed. Someone over at Politco repeated a quote "Much truth is said in jest." That's the way it's going to be looked at. And, thanks to everyone in the MSM, everyone who owns a TV will see it. Over and over and over again.

Both Blitt and Remnick need a kick in the ... blitt.

[Colobo]

23. I agree 100%!

[madamesilverspurs]

34. No vote until

we see the New Yorker's McCain cover, showing McCain playing poker with current veterans. "I'll see your POW and raise you an amputation and two suicides." Do you think the publisher would find THAT to be merely satirical?

[minnesota_liberal]

40. If I were a subscriber, I'd cancel

There's nothing more to say.

[Ian David]

41. I think it would have been more effective INSIDE with the ARTICLE for those of us who READ.

However...

Since Republicans don't actually read...

However well-intended The New Yorker certainly was, this cover is counter-productive to communicating their intended message.

[otohara]

42. Fodder For MSM - At Least Entire Week

we'll be seeing it over and over again - they will talk about it to death - can't wait. Might have to be another week of tuning OUT crappy cable channels and obsessive talk about The Obama's.

[PBS Poll-435]

43. None of the above (OTHER)

The average American doesn't give a flip about "The New Yorker."

Now if it were on the cover of "Swank?"

[begin_within]

44. If they do a cartoon on the next issue lampooning John & Cindy McCain it will feel fairer.

[rasputin1952]

45. I look at it more like Freedom of the Press...

I don't like the cover, but I do not believe in censorship. I would not buy it, that, for me is the statement I would make to the NY'er.

To put it succinctly, I am not going to give up my 1st Amendment Rights because of a magazine cover. I have great respect for the BoR's and people publish all kinds of things...I don't have to buy them, I don't have to look at them and I don't have to foist them on others.

[ruggerson]

48. Neither: it's a satirical magazine cover - the New Yorker isn't a house organ for the Obama campaign

They are a storied literary magazine. They have been around long before Obama and will be around long after Obama's (hopefully) two terms have passed.

[Blue_In_AK]

49. It's funny

I wouldn't say it's a positive or a negative. The people who would let a magazine cover like that influence them not to vote for Obama wouldn't be voting for him anyway.