A Fist-Bump for the New Yorker

I'm a little late to the party, but here is an absurd decorousness in the denunciations -- from the Obama and McCain campaigns and across the liberal blogosphere -- of the current New Yorker cover.

The top-line objection is to accuse the New Yorker of poor taste. In the limited context of campaign discourse this is true. But magazines and other journalistic enterprises would be crazy to buy into the notion that abitrary etiquette of American campaigns (which encourages candidates to lie baldly, and surrogates to spin and smarm and swift-boat, while prohibiting frank talk to a host of issues from race to religion to terror itself), should govern their decisions.

Underneath that are liberals' more practical fears about the cover's impact on Obama's campaign. This line of thinking goes: Obama is so new and different, his image so unformed in the public mind, and U.S. opinion still so anxious on the matter of terrorism, with Democrats perceived as weak -- that the Obama campaign, and we as a nation, just can't handle images like this, because they might be interpreted the wrong way.

Really? No one worries that TNY's readership will take it literally. Fox will show it and chortle, but hey -- it will likely only confuse conservative viewers inclined to think of Obama as a Muslim terrorist dupe. Why are the liberal elites advertising Obama's subversion, mocking it? The image itself is an absurd jumble of terrorist iconography -- Black Power, al Qaeda, flag burning, etc.

Seven years after 9/11, after an onslaught of bad-faith political manipulation over terror, and with the threat of al Qaeda now quite debatable, Americans can certainly handle a little jokey imagery about terrorism and politics. Free expression is a bulwark of American liberalism, part of what makes it what it makes it superior to political philosophies that rigidly enforce what words can be uttered and images can be shown. When liberals start policing the "poor taste" of cartoons so that some people don't get the "wrong idea," it only reinforces the notion that all the fearmongering was effective, and perhaps right -- and also shows how weak and tenuous Democrats fear their position on terrorism remains.

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Comments

[noradunn]

This isn't "jokey" imagery. And it isn't cutting edge. It's the cover of The New Yorker, the magazine that gave us feet walking past the posters of 9/11's missing persons. New Yorkers moving on. The covers over the years haven't always been brilliant, but they've been close, and often wonderfully subtle and tender. This cartoon is satire on a high school level. Of course we get it. It's just dumb. You don't target the victims of the injustice you're commenting on. And The New Yorker missed a chance to fully satirize a candidate whom we doubt, whom we don't know, and who has been presented as a healer and a saint instead of a viable candidate. The fact that people like you are trying to explain it is the real joke. What's next? A fat, balding John McCain stealing money from his wife's pure while calling her the "c" word?

[NTO08]

You don't target the victims of the injustice you're commenting on.

That's not up to you or anyone else to decide in a country which allegedly has free speech...

[Maanu]

Rather than focusing on scary falsehoods, they should've exposed some scary truths, of which there are plenty. Or maybe even focus on what you want to promote, eh?

[whatsthatsound]

If it had been a Pat Oliphant or Tom Toles cartoon on the op-ed page of a paper, all would have gone down without a peep. Why does the New Yorker put political cartoons on their covers anyway? They don't put them inside, or at least they haven't traditionally (I haven't looked at one in a while).
To me, it seems like a lame attempt for a rag older than Daisy's bicycle built for two to show how "with it" and relevant it is.

[Quotato]

I miss the original Mad Magazine, National Lampoon and all of the original underground comic art.

What is wrong with having a little fun in these boring serious times?

[GJP2006]

I get the gist of the admonishment here; however, does anyone else see any issues with the following:

>>The image itself is an absurd jumble of terrorist iconography -- Black Power, al Qaeda, flag burning, etc.

Hmm...

[ManassasMan]

If this cover were to have appeared 25-30 years ago, I might have bought the New Yorker's explanation that this is just satire. But, we are now in the INTERNET-LIMBAUGH-O'REILLY-HANNITY-ROVE-BIBLE THUMPIN' SNAKE-HANDLER ERA folks, and there are already versions of this cover all over the internet, complete with Bubba's own captions, and therein lies the problem, even IF Bubba doesn't or can't read the New Yorker.

I consider this to be in shockingly bad taste, and it will have an extremely bad effect on the Obama campaign. If you think that the Republican thug-like operatives won't milk this for everything it's worth, then I've got a bridge in Brooklyn that you can have for a very low price ! The Swift Boat gang is already salivating !

[acerigger]

GOOD LORD!!!!!!! I LIVE IN A PODUNK TOWN,WENT TO PODUNK SCHOOL,BUT EVEN I CAN RECOGNIZE SATIRE!!!!!!

[SeriousBlack]

Just a slight quibble with your fundamental proposition, Mr. McQuaid: "When liberals start policing the "poor taste" of cartoons..."

There's a difference between "cartoons" and the cover of a major magazine like The New Yorker. When someone says the word cartoon to me I think of one of the yes, historically ubiquitous POLITICAL CARTOONS that one sees ALL THE TIME, EVERY DAY IN EVERY MAJOR NEWSPAPER IN THE COUNTRY IN THEIR POLITICAL/EDITORIAL SECTIONS.

And if I had seen this particular drawing along with one of THOSE, I still wouldn't like it too much but I wouldn't have given it much thought. Just think of the types of cartoons (and how extreme some of them are) one sees EVERY DAY IN THAT CONTEXT.

But, it is a different matter to see such a drawing ON THE COVER OF A MAJOR MAGAZINE. It is different. Period.

You can try to equate seeing that drawing ON THE COVER OF A MAJOR MAGAZINE like The New Yorker with MERELY being a "cartoon" all you want but it is a stretch at best.

[disgusted48]

have you forgotten that 48% of the voting U.S. Population are dumb as mud or benefit financially by voting republican, and another 3% of American voters are dumb as mud at least 50% of the time. One fourth of Americans think that Obama is a muslim right now, the Rev. Wright flap notwithstanding. Our hope is in that 3%, and this "satirical" piece doesn't help.

[Gregorysf]

I laughed the instant I saw the cover. I got it. The artist took all the ridiculous stereotypes from the righties and made a joke of it. Someone tell me how the right wing noise machine is going to use a New Yorker cover to say "See, I told you!" A cartoon of Obama burning the Constitution would have been more apt and irony free.

[Robert59]

It's not satirical or funny.

The New Yorker might come across as liberal, but who are we kidding here? Its readership is the affluent. They might be liberal on social issues, but not when it comes to money.

Wealthy people in this country are more often than not Republican. They are scared Obama will lighten their wallets. They never had it so good under Bush.

And wealthy people vote and they give money to campaigns. This was a swiftboating.

[tsog]

John, You hit the nail on the head. In an ideal world (progressive and informed citizens) this would be a considered a joke, not particularly great but definitely worth satirizing.
But as you pointed as well, that we live in an America that is so backward in so many ways and with Fix holding their banner we just don't need any other negativity.

I can betcha, next week this time, Fix will still be playing up this 'issue', the same way you can still expect to hear about the totally non consequential Jsse Jacksn remarks on that tainted network.

Satire all right, but over done and unnecessary.

[RoseMerry]

I just don't care. People are hungry, people are homeless, people are dying, and my nation has lost it's soul. Obama support Big Brother and has betrayed us and this is just another distraction.

[JoyceH]

I agree with those upthread who call this bad satire. The problem with it is that the people supposedly being satirized are not even in the picture. The people in the picture being made to look ridiculous are the VICTIMS of the supposed subject of the satire.

Try this - imagine a cartoon in 2004 that showed John Kerry as a Lieutenant on a Swift Boat. He's shooting himself in the foot, while saying, "Here's my next Purple Star and my ticket out of Vietnam".

Okay, what is being satirized? The Swiftboaters? Not if that's the stand-alone image - in this case, KERRY is being satirized, and the cartoonist is not only not satirizing the Swiftboaters, he's JOINING them.

Just like the New Yorker cartoonist isn't satirizing the anti-Obama smears - he's joining in them. Maybe that wasn't his intent, but that's sure how it comes across.

[Mij13]

Bush-McSame would like nothing more than for all Americans to take their fear mongering with the utmost seriousness. The New Yorker just made a national joke out of it. What is not to like?