Well, as the old saying goes, if you have to explain the joke, it’s no longer funny.

There’s another well known axiom to humor. Tragedy plus time equals comedy.

Obviously, when it comes to the New Yorker’s latest cover featuring the Obamas as closet Al-Qaeda members and/or Black Panther era terrorists, an insufficient amount of time has passed between that elusive “now” and the whisper campaign that is ongoing against them. As to tragedy, the only tragedy in this episode seems to be the way in which the New Yorker has turned a subject matter that hungers for serious political discussion into a mangled, tone deaf and insensible gaffe.

To that point, another axiom of humor. It has to be based in fact. But Michelle Obama has never been seen sporting an Angela Davis style afro, or packing a Kalashnikov. And there are no long lost pictures of Barack wearing a Thaqib on secret weekend outings, never mind the Osama bin Laden portrait and the flag burning in the fireplace. Okay, there was that one picture of Barack adopting local Muslim attire as a courtesy to his African guests, but come on, that’s like mistaking George Bush for a member of the Kankouran West African dance troupe. There’s just no basis in fact for either assumption.

And when it comes to humor hitting the mark, or falling flat, let’s not forget another maxim. Play to your audience. You don’t start your standup routine at a Borscht Belt, Catskill summer retreat by saying, “And speaking of Jews…”

At every level of humor this satire failed. Not enough time has passed, nor cultural equanimity achieved, since the bruising Democratic primary campaign. There was no basis in fact for the joke, only cynicism and innuendo, and the New Yorker made the incredibly preposterous assumption that they were only appealing to their hip, chai chugging West Side audience. That, or it was an attempt at ramping up their circulation. I don’t know which conclusion would be considered the more disgraceful.

Yet, I still see the silver lining. As with the already well vetted attempts by some to portray Barack Obama as just another Jesse Jackson extremist, and the more recent and insidious Fox News attempt to portray the infamous fist bump as some sort of secret terrorist cipher. Barack Obama has survived, and I dare say even thrived under difficult circumstances.

Why? Well, in my opinion it is because, however unsavory these episodes may be, they force our society to face its inner struggle about electing a “black” candidate. The truth is on the table, and the public must fall one way or the other. Either you’re an unrelenting redneck, who will never vote for Obama anyway, or you watch the grace of the man under fire and realize none of this tripe warrants him being discredited. Fortunately, the vast majority of Americans fall into this latter category. Remarkably, resiliently, the public at large has seen through this current absurdity, as it has seen through everything else thrown at the man. And Obama simply becomes a more sympathetic character, the more he strides with grace through the political minefield around him.