Furor Swirls Around Liberal New Yorker’s Caricature Of Obama Cover

Is it satire? Or the equivalent of an unintentional hit piece caricature that will be welcomed and exploited by his political enemies? Whatever: the bottom line is that the New Yorker, long the darling in liberal circles, is now under fire from the campaign of Democratic presumptive nominee Sen. Barack Obama and many liberals for a magazine cover that is a seeming medley of negative images about Obama and his wife Michelle.

The cartoon you see above — which will provide cable talk and screaming head political shows with hours of programming and a “high concept” visual that can be run over and over — has been soundly condemned by the Obama campaign and even by the McCain campaign (which most likely considers it a plus in terms of undermining Obama’s preferred imagery). The Politico reports:

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.”

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly e-mailed: “We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it’s tasteless and offensive.”

The issue, which goes on sale Monday, includes a long piece by Ryan Lizza about Obama’s start in Chicago politics.

It’s clear from the New Yorker’s political grounding that it wasn’t meant a hit peace on Obama — but depicting his wife as a radical with a gun, a room in their house as a burning flag, a portrait of Osama bin Laden on their wall was bound to generate some buzz that will most likely not boost its subscription rate among its reader demographics. Or is it indicative of what some consider a reality: controversy, schmontroversy…if you get lots of ink and broadcast time, you hit the jackpot..

The larger issue is: when campaigns spend literally millions of dollars to create images and additional millions to scuttle negative images, a cartoon such as this meant as satire does have the possibility of perpetuating stereotypes.

Most political cartooning (we run lots of political cartoons here on TMV) latches on to conventional wisdom or stereotypes and exploits it. The problem here: in this cartoon the New Yorker depicted racial and religious stereotypes — and there is a real prospect (shall we say “certainty?”) that many who see the cover on cable telecasts or on news stands will never open one page of the magazine itself to read the piece that accompanies it.

In an interview on the Huffington Post which needs to be read in full, New Yorker editor David Remnick defends the cartoon:

This cover has quickly become very controversial. The Obama campaign has called it “tasteless and offensive.” Why did you run it?

Obviously I wouldn’t have run a cover just to get attention — I ran the cover because I thought it had something to say. What I think it does is hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about Barack Obama’s — both Obamas’ — past, and their politics. I can’t speak for anyone else’s interpretations, all I can say is that it combines a number of images that have been propagated, not by everyone on the right but by some, about Obama’s supposed “lack of patriotism” or his being “soft on terrorism” or the idiotic notion that somehow Michelle Obama is the second coming of the Weathermen or most violent Black Panthers. That somehow all this is going to come to the Oval Office.

Also:

Prior to greenlighting the cover, did you consider that it might be co-opted by Obama opponents as anti-Obama propaganda? If so, did that possibility give you pause?

It always occurs to you that things will be misinterpreted or taken out of context — that’s not unusual. But I think that’s the case of all political satire, whether it’s Art Spiegelman or Thomas Nast or Herb Block or Jon Stewart. I bet there are people who watch Stephen Colbert and think he’s a conservative commentator, or maybe they did at first….a lot of people when they first saw Colbert said, “What is this? ” What he was doing was turning things on [their] head.

Read the post and the comments in their entirety.

Notes LA Times blogger Andrew Malcomb:

The McCain campaign immediately e-mailed a similar statement from Tucker Bounds: “We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it’s tasteless and offensive.”

Of course, the McCain people must say that, despite some staff no doubt chuckling behind closed doors over their opponent’s new challenge. That’s the problem with satire. A lot of people won’t get the joke. Or won’t want to. And will use it for non-humorous purposes, which isn’t the New Yorker’s fault.

A problem is there’s no caption on the cover to ensure that everyone gets the ha-ha-we’ve-collected-almost-every-cliched-rumor-about-Obama-in-one-place-in-order-to–make-fun-of-them punchline.

So you’ll no doubt see this image making the internet rounds in coming months by people who don’t want to see the satire. And won’t include the magazine’s press release saying, ““On the cover of the July 21, 2008, issue of The New Yorker, in ‘The Politics of Fear,’ artist Barry Blitt satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the presidential election to derail Barack Obama’s campaign.”

And, indeed, it you look at the issues involved here you get this:

–The New York has a long record as a liberal magazine. It clearly was not meant as a hit cartoon.
–Political cartoons are run all the time in the United States and some are even more pointed than this one.
–This cartoon typifies all the stereotypes about race and falsities about Obama’s background that have emerged from the septic tank of furtive and non-furtive whispers and emails in recent months. This places this cartoon within a different context.
–It is not labeled as satire on the cover so anyone looking at the magazine — ignoring the old axiom that “assume” makes an “ass” of “u and me” — might assume that the piece inside deals with the aspects the cartoon shows.
–The cover will be run as an illustration on cable shows and most likely on some future blog posts (running it on a post such as this one about the controversy is illustrative and a necessity) written by people who don’t like Obama and/or feel he said or did something that they consider radical.
–It will most definitely appear in emails without any note about what it’s original intent was.

It also underscores a fact of American political life: demonization of candidates now doesn’t even have to be intentional.

If it’s thrown out there, it’s most likely someone will see something lying on the field that looks like a football and take it — and run with it.

Here’s a cross section of blog reaction:

–Andrew Sullivan:

It sure has buzz. But if my email in-tray is any indicator of anything, it isn’t good. I still see it as satire, and the notion that most Americans are incapable of seeing that strikes me as excessively paranoid and a little condescending.

–Pajamas Media’s Roger Simon:

You’d think The New Yorker – of all places – would be savvy about subtext, not to mention all the deconstructed and psychoanalyzed subconscious and semi-conscious wishes inherent in “authorial choice” or whatever they called it at the Sorbonne and Yale circa 1983. But no! The cover above is appearing on the magazine this week, putatively as a warning that those meanies on the right are about to smear the Obamas as the second coming of Angela Davis and Ayman al-Zawahiri. But how could that be? In truth Michelle and Barack are nowhere near as interesting as Angela and Ayman – or as imaginative (in a negative sense, anyway). And to make matters quickly worse, the cover itself has already been disowned by the candidate.

–Will Bunch looks at the controversy and writes:

I disagree — I think this is great satire (that’s what New Yorker cartoons are, remember?) of how absurd our political discourse has become, showing just how ridiculous the Obama slurs are by taking them all the way over the top. Do you honestly think there’s one American who was planning to vote for Obama who will see this, say “Oh my God, they’re terrorists!,” and change his or her vote?

If there is, God help us.

–John Cole:

And as someone who is hardly on the fence regarding the Obama campaign, I just don’t see what the big deal is though. It was clear what they are doing, and they aren’t, you know, the folks actually spreading this kind of garbage. And again, it is kind of run of the mill stuff for political cartoons, and if I had seen the cover before I had seen everyone’s reaction at memeorandum, I would have predicted that liberals and Democrats would have gotten the joke and approved of it.

–Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey:

Obviously, the New Yorker wanted to go for satire, poking fun at what they see as the image of the Obamas among conservatives. Just as obviously, the editors of the New Yorker showed very poor judgment in approving this cover. A satirical cartoon on the inside would have been more appropriate, but having this on the cover shouldn’t just offend the Obamas, but also conservatives who have a number of substantial issues with Barack Obama.

This makes the third bigoted attack [JG: Morrissey later has to explain to readers that "third bigoted attack" is tongue and cheek] from the Left on Obama. Two weeks ago, it was Ralph Nader acting as the arbiter of black authenticity, and last week it was Jesse Jackson wanting to castrate Obama. One side in this cycle certainly seems obsessed by identity politics, but so far it isn’t the Republicans.

–The Jed Report:

Rather than raising questions about the wingers, it raises questions about the Obamas. It’s an image we’ll probably be seeing the right-wing appropriate over the course of the campaign. If that happens, the only ironic thing about the cover will turn out to have been it’s complete and total failure to achieve its desired effect.

Update: And purely from a political perspective, the pathetic thing about it is that if someone wants Barack Obama to win the presidency, they ought to have the brains to realize this campaign is not a referendum on the rumors about him. This campaign is a referendum on the direction this country will take after George Bush. Will we continue along the same general path, or will we chart a new course? That’s what it comes down to.

–John Aravosis:

Is the New Yorker so out of touch that they don’t realize that much of America, or at least too much of America, harbors these very concerns about Obama and his wife? I’m sure the New Yorker thinks they’re actually poking holes in the myth by making light of the stereotypes. Yeah, and tell us how this pokes fun at the stereotype? It reinforces it. And yet again, you’d never see them try anything like this with John McCain. God forbid you even ask a question about John McCain’s experience, the media will destroy you. But paint Obama and his wife as America-hating flag-burning violent terrorists, and it’s funny. I can’t wait to hear what Mrs. Greenspan and Bob Schieffer over at NBC have to say about this. Somehow I’m betting their outrage won’t be as great as when anyone questions Saint McCain.

–Prairie Weather:

Too bad the New Yorker is out of touch with the reality that a lot of Americans look, but don’t read.

–Q&O:

Okay. No doubt that there are some die-hard righties out there passing along emails about Obama being a secret Muslim, and probably some other stuff. But where exactly are most of these rumors coming from? Oh yeah, the left….

I guess the moral of the story is to never let common sense get in the way of moral indignation and supreme righteousness.

As an afterthought, does it occur to anyone else that people seem to be working awfully hard to present Obama with his Sister Souljah moment?

–James Joyner:

I do, however, think it will achieve its desired effects. First and foremost, it’s already generating more buzz than any issue in the magazine’s recent history. More importantly, though, it will lead to a round of discussion of the “Obama is a Muslim” nonsense on the various talking heads shows. This, in turn, will force Republican operatives to state, over and over, that they don’t think Obama is a Muslim, a terrorist, an America hater, and so forth. That’s probably the only way this silly meme goes away.

–Talk Left’s Big Tent Democrat:

My view is that as satire it utterly fails. Satire of issues like this almost always do. Satire involving racist, sexist and religious stereotypes just do not work and I wonder when folks might wake up to that fact. Or will they continue to yell “PC!”

–Ann Althouse:

The artist is Barry Blitt, and I have to say that I think the cover is a hilarious spoof of the fears and lies about Obama. Michelle and Barack are in the Oval Office, doing a celebratory fist bump. There’s an Osama Bin Laden portrait on the wall and a burning flag in the fireplace. He’s a Muslim and she’s a revolutionary. Of course, Obama has to push it aside and can scarcely laugh about it.

Or, maybe, I don’t know… maybe it would work to laugh. He’s been awfully uptight about things lately. And laughing conveys the instant recognition that it’s absurd. Why be surly about it? McCain’s supposed to be the cranky guy…

There’s a ton of reaction on the blogosophere. Here are some links if you want to see more:
Macsmind, Pandagon, Taylor Marsh, Sister Toldjah, Gina Cobb, Jammie Wearing Fool, The Glittering Eye, Horses Ass.org, Viking Pundit, Illinois Review, The Blog of the Moderate Left, Tbogg,
Times OnLine, The Sundries Shack, The Raw Story, Extreme Mortman, Stop the ACLU, Blackfive, Molly Good, Political Radar, The Volokh Conspiracy, Newshoggers, Enomia, The Pirate’s Cove, Down Under Newslinks, Webloggin, The Gun Toting Liberal