Renew the New Yorker — for life!

By Weekly Archive On Jul 22, 2008

Barack
Obama’s campaign denounced it as "tasteless and offensive"
and an insult to all Muslims. John McCain called it "totally
inappropriate." They both take themselves too seriously.

Pardon
my political incorrectness, but when I saw the cover of this week’s
New Yorker magazine, I laughed out loud — as Obama should have, too.
First, it was LOL funny. The image of Barack and Michelle Obama
invading the Oval Office in Muslim garb, while giving each other what
Fox News dubbed the "terrorist fist jab," highlights the
absurdity of the fear campaign which Republicans are trying to stir
up against Obama. Indeed, cartoonist Barry Blitt named his artwork
"The Politics of Fear."

Not
only that, the cover makes a great point, which is to dig up all
those rumors about Obama circulating on the Internet, expose them to
the light of day and show just how ridiculous they are. Obama’s tried
to knock them down with his own Web site, fightthesmears.com, but
satire and humor are much more effective tools for fighting bias than
outrage. What better way to illustrate the ignorance of those who
spread rumors about "Obama the closet Muslim" than by
dressing him up in Muslim garb in the Oval Office, with a portrait of
Osama bin Laden on the wall and the American flag burning in the
fireplace?

Bravo
for the editors of The New Yorker! In the all-American tradition of
political humor dating back to Colonial times, they poked fun at and
destroyed the credibility of those who are desperately trying to make
Obama the scary man he is not. They deserve a Pulitzer. Instead, all
they got was manufactured outrage from every side.

Obama
supporters cried foul. How dare they make fun of our sacred
candidate? TV commentators howled over what they condemned as one
more example of religious and racist bias. Editorial writers lamented
the lowering of standards for political discourse.

Give
me a freaking break. This presidential campaign has been taken over
by the political niceness police. You can’t say anything clever about
anybody anymore. Obama’s criticized for calling Phil Gramm "Dr.
Phil." McCain’s slammed for calling Obama "Dr. No."
The New Yorker’s condemned for running a political cartoon on its
cover. We’ve suddenly become a nation of insufferable political
snobs.

Come
on, people, lighten up. All politicians, including Barack Obama, are
fair targets for late-night comics and editorial cartoonists. And The
New Yorker, especially, has a history of skewering politicians on the
left and right. As Bill Maher wonders: "If you can’t do irony on
the cover of The New Yorker, where can you do it?" Stephen
Colbert had perhaps the best take on the whole cover flap: "It’s
a completely valid satirical point to make — and it’s perfectly
valid for Obama not to like it."

What’s
even more offensive is the argument that, while regular New Yorker
readers will get it, the joke will be lost on most average Americans.
Or, as one of my radio listeners put it, "I can just imagine my
redneck brother-in-law picking up that magazine and saying: ‘See,
even you damned Yankees get why we’re so worried about Barack
Obama.’"

Talk
about elitism! That argument, usually made by people who live in New
York or Washington, assumes that most people living in the heartland
are boobs, which is simply not true. There is wisdom to be found west
of the Hudson and Potomac. It also assumes that rural Americans will
vote against Barack Obama simply because he is black, which isn’t
true, either. In fact, polls show Obama leading McCain or close to
him in Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota, where blacks make up
less than 2 percent of the population.

Nervous
nellies need to relax. It doesn’t matter what part of the country
we’re talking about. Everyone gets it. There’s nobody anywhere dumb
enough to take The New Yorker cover seriously.

Most
commentators have it backwards. Instead of condemning or complaining
about its controversial magazine cover, people should go out, buy
this week’s New Yorker and enjoy a good laugh. God knows we won’t
have many more of them between now and November.

Note:
In last week’s column, I may have given the wrong impression that
founders of the Web site LiebermanMustGo.com are seeking the
immediate expulsion of Joe Lieberman from the Senate Democratic
caucus. Not so. They are responsibly seeking his ouster, but not
until after the November elections.

Bill
Press is host of a nationally syndicated radio show and author of a
new book, "Train
Wreck: The End of the Conservative Revolution (and Not a Moment Too
Soon)." You
can hear "The Bill Press Show" at his Web site:
billpressshow.com. His email address is: bill@billpress.com.