That New Yorker Cover

Satire? They have to be kidding. Are the editorial staff of the New Yorker so tone-deaf to the political realities in this country that they don't understand how their self-indulgent "satire" will be put to use? By reducing the argument, as they do in their response to criticism, to purely literary and aesthetic considerations, they prove themselves to be asinine beyond belief. As others besides myself have pointed out, this idiocy hands the yahoos a weapon they themselves would not have had the wit to hone. In their sense of intellectual entitlement, they forget the vast mass of voters who lack the critical discrimination to read their cover in other than literal terms: those many who will understand it at face value, not for its ironical intention.

I notice that Obama's poll numbers have dropped significantly in the past week alone, along with his fund-raising potential. Thank his liberal friends, from Reverend Jesse Jackson to the idealist left-wing bloggers and mind-bogglingly stupid "literate" liberals like the New Yorker. I'm planning to send in another few dollars to support this candidate. I hope my readers will judiciously put aside their disagreements -- no matter how much I might agree with the rationality of their arguments -- and join me in renewing our support. We simply cannot afford to sacrifice an entire election to our individual principles one more time. There's far too much at stake.

I'm hoping that the example of the New Yorker cover will prove a useful lesson to the liberal conscience about the risks incurred by this lack of circumspection. There's a single, over-riding goal at stake this time around. It's nothing less than the rescue of this country from self-destruction, not to mention the planet that we share with others. And that, to my way of thinking, is no exaggeration.

By the way, I have never done this before, because the gesture has seemed no more than petulance and spite, but I felt I had to make a statement, no matter how small: I canceled our subscription to the New Yorker. I hope millions of others do the same.

Comments

[DoveyJudith]

Peter, You write of the New Yorker: "In their sense of intellectual entitlement, they forget the vast mass of voters who lack the critical discrimination to read their cover in other than literal terms."

And it's their job - the New Yorker's - to dumb down their material in such a way as to make sure it is completely understood by the "vast mass of voters???"

That's your analysis? Jesus, man, I didn't realize how far we've sunk. Thanks for the heads-up.

Almost a century of doing cover art that often runs toward the trenchant, and now, in 2008, they have to deal with a mass of humanity that has gone backwards in its capacity to comprehend?

I live in red-state flyover country, and I immediately understood that the cover was a satire, a parody, of all the falsehoods and urban myths that the Right tries to push regarding the Obamas. Of course, I did engage my brain, and I also noticed the table of contents page says the title of the cover is "The Politics of Fear."

Bill Maher was right: If you can't do satire and irony on the cover of the New Yorker, where can you? I now know what he feels like when he's working a club date and the audience doesn't get his material and turns hostile.

[PeterAtLarge]

Here's the thing: this "satire" was misdirected. In a political cartoon, fair enough, go after Obama for whatever his failings might be. But here the target was not, supposedly, Obama, but those who demean him. If this was the target, they were nowhere to be seen. Make a picture of Rush Limbaugh drawing this cartoon, and you have a whole different result.

[strifeknot]

It's not The New Yorker's job to only print things that can be easily understood by the bigoted buffoons who don't read the magazine to begin with, nor is it the magazine's job to get the latest pusillanimous Democratic offering into the White House.

Why not ask Jeanette Winterson to dumb down her novels so the that Stephen King fans will understand them, or ask Bela Tarr to dumb down his films so that George Lucas fans will understand them?

Please get a grip.

[Fudgefase]

I liked the early Stephen King books and I'm reasonably on the ball.

[PeterAtLarge]

See my response, above. Perhaps my own original comments failed to make the point. It's not a desire to "dumb-down," as I may have suggested; it's a desire to get it right.

[grendl]

Uhm, not to nit pick but it's "ironic" not " ironical", but then you may have written that tongue in cheek.

And most of America doesn't know the difference anyway, which is the problem with the cover of the New Yorker.

[lanrameau]

In '04 the New Yorker endorsed John Kerry. Didn't matter. This doesn't matter either.