A New Yorker Cover For National Review

[UPDATED, below.]

Andrew Sullivan pulls this editorial cartoon from David Horsey, and asks, "How would the Republican base react to this?"

Of course, all things are relative. I would imagine that there are many readers of the National Review who would likely get exercised over this, get offended, and question whether the magazine was doing all it could to ensure a conservative stays in the White House. But then again, McCain isn't a Republican candidate who has a significant, invested fan base among conservatives, so it's just as likely that many readers would shrug and say, "Yep. That about covers it."

In any event, while I think Horsey does a brilliant job in covering the same ground as Barry Blitt, this imagined cover fails in the exact same way as the real cover of the New Yorker, in that it does not actually satirize stereotypes or criticize those who trade in them.

UPDATE: Katrina VandenHeuvel of The Nation responds, along with two of that publication's regular cartoonists.

KVH: "While I understand why many object to this cartoon--and to images which they believe reinforce stereotypes (and there are many at The Nation who found the New Yorker cartoon offensive), I believe satire--even if it flops or offends --has a place in our culture and politics.

Comments

[PoliticoJonze]

This National Review mock-up is a caricature, not satire.

[fedupsquared]

Word!

[wmbear]

Excellent distinction....

[lvogt]

Well, I think it proves the critics point. The cover seems to be all about the people depicted. Cindy stole drugs. McCain is old and sang bomb Iran, the FISA legislation did damage the Constitution and McCain likes Cheney. One looks at this and thinks it's about McCain, not about his critics.

[Kenji]

But those things are all true.

[anastasiabeaverhousen]

Satire is satire because it has an element of truth to it. The NYer cover did not have one scintilla of truth in ANY of it.

[midknightryder13]

Well, BO and his wife DID fist bump. I guess 1 out of 7 (?) ain't bad.

[julessiegel]

http://newsroom-l.net/newsroom/?p=335

[BabsfromKS]

Very Good!

[Big0725]

Typical reaction to a New Yawker. Look down on people that don't appreciate their creativity. Was it irony or comedy? In my book it was neither. The reaction to the reaction is pure New York though. When are you piece of crap snobs going to realize that the world doesn't end at the Hudson? Screw the New Yorker and thier readers and all five boroughs.

[SaintJimmy]

The cartoon should also have McCain holding a piece of paper with various media logos on the borders and the words "FREE PASS" in big letters in the center.

[gotborked]

Hosey's cartoon also fails in its effect, but that's because the reality of the two scenarios cannot compare.

The two pictures, which are hyperbolic representations of the irrational fear-based arguments against either nominee, show that our worst fears about Obama as president are exponentially more threatening than our worst fears about McCain as president.

That is, enduring a lingering influence of Bush/Cheney foreign and domestic policy, having an elderly president, and having a first lady that had a prescription drug habit is not nearly as devastating for America as succumbing to radical Islam, submitting to Osama bin laden, et al, and having a racist, militant first lady.

Apples n’ oranges, you could say.

[eden4barack08]

No, uh uh, not the same thing, not by far, no consolation here.
Try another one.

[SweetJudith]

This really did happen.
The DEA went after the Mrs.
She was stealing pain meds from her Childrens Charity stash!
Wow, what a great roll model!
The New Yorker's cover has nothing to do with the brilliant Obama's!
The Obama's are truly amazing people.
Check out Cindy's eyes. They are VERY glassy.
Thats the reason she wears sun glasses so much and never speaks, she slurs.....

[SharonB]

The difference is that the McCain cover never happened and the Obama cover did.
Apparently the editors at the National Review, as much as I disagree with their politics, realize that you are shooting yourself in the foot with that kind of joke being directed at the candidate you support..
That drawing looks like something you would see in the "Limbaugh Letter" or on the website of Sean Hannity.

[DrFitz]

Yesm, they have some sense about the effect of things if nothing else.

[BlackBuddha]

Try this for a false image:

Smiling while dazed and confused, Cindy has a needle in her arm, and/or crack pipe to her lips, as...

Face down at the Oval Office desk, McCane is punching the nuclear launch button (next to a "I've fallen and I can't get up" signal/buzzer) while a Hitler (or maybe Chairman Mao) portrait smiles above a fireplace burning human remains.

Could anyone explain what would possibly be misunderstood?

hmmm... can I commission an artist?

[pinkmamba]

yes that's more like it

[pithy]

Great concept - just add Cindy using her other arm to rake a credit card through a machine that 's smoking from all the use it got last month ($750,000) and put Phil Gramm in a corner, looking out a window, impatient and disgusted, while all the whiners jump out of Wall Street windows.

[HeadCheese]

Cookies on the desk.

[DrFitz]

Or how about McCain with his finger on the the nuclear trigger?

[CaptSmash]

What about burning women and children with napalm and calling all women the "C" word.

[tinarm]

Problem the cover of the New Yorker were lies, the cover of Review is the truth. It is not funny, it's the truth. Cindy did have a drug problem, McCain is old, he does worship Cheney and Bush I guess you could complain about the wheelchair, but he does stay home every weekend and hasn't been to the Senate in months. I don't get it.

[negogato]

Satire is a kind of unmasking.
The New Yorker invents an image of vicious fiction generated by those who know better - masking the truth.

[gotborked]

Apply your standards to the Obama picture and one could argue that it's true that Michelle Obama is a racially-minded militant (see her recent gaffes, college thesis, etc.), and that it's true, not that B.H.O. is an Islamist himself, but that he is more sympathetic to their causes, and his policies bend to the will of radical islamists. Also, in reality, he has terrorist friends--i.e. Bill Ayers.

[gotalife]

Hilarious.

[Amennyc]

This NO comparison. There is some validity to the Review cover.