I'd love to hear some thoughts about the cover.

You know . . . who knows how this all plays out. I'm sure that it's possible that the cover draws all of the rumors and smears into the open and subsequently knocks them down.

However, I can already see from the posts that commenters are leaving at the ABC/Jake Tapper site that there are more than a few 'there's some truth behind every rumor' thoughts.

Who knows? I just don't think they get it.

I subscribe to the New Yorker, New York and Vanity Fair. Like most regular readers of the three, over time you understand where each of the mags is coming from -- its editorial perspective.

Unfortunately, I don't think a majority of non-regulars will get the cover. I think they'll be blown away by the whirlwind surrounding the cover and the inflammatory comments it will generate.

I think the cover illustrator's intentions were to convey his ironic message -- meant to be funny, you know like, um those "good jokes" mentioned earlier in the week that some folks like as much as the next guy -- but sometimes what's "ha-ha" funny to one guy, what is "do I amuse youse?" funny to someone else, completely misses to a third party, and may be just downright offensive to a fourth. Judging by the reaction of the Obama campaign, they are in the "it's not so funny" camp.

And one's reaction is also tempered by how you come in contact with it the first time. Will I (Did I) look at the cover untainted? Would I have laughed, thought it was cute? Or did knowing there was a controversy a-brewing alter my perception?

The disgusting thing is that the will get SO MUCH attention for this... sort of like FOX 'News' doing ridiculous and disgusting things because of the reactions they get. Outrageous, ignorant, and ridiculous cover choice... I will let them know what I think of their choice but I certianly don't read the New Yorker. Subscribers have more sway.

If you think that's something , you should get acquainted with the entire years' covers which have featured Cheney and Bush. I've got one in a portfolio book that shows Cheney as a pumpkin carving with his characteristic sneer agressively lit from inside. Another one this February showed the classic tophatted guy with monacle as a playing card - a joker actually. One way it was Obama, the other way up it was Clinton. Then there's Steve Brodner's cartoon of Oprah holding Obama like he's the baby Jesus.

Nobody even snickered on TPM about any of those.

If you don't "get" the New Yorker, just look outside the box.

Sad... guess the New Yorker is losing its touch...

Jonathan Swift is turning in his grave.

You all need to relax.

It's funny, but I went through a few moments of shock, and then outrage, and then more shock, and then curiosity. I asked myself why, what, how this ever got published. I realized that it was satire, because it was the New Yorker that did it.

Then I came up with the word that has become part of the lexicon of this year's race - inartful. It was a wonderful word to describe a piece of art. Inartful. Poorly conceived for reasons stated by other posters. It simply does not convey its satire well enough, while it does a great job of displaying, and to some perhaps, validating the beliefs it satirizes.

Still, I'm not sure making a huge stink about it is necessarily the way to go. I'm tempted to watch what others say, and perhaps make a stink about those who take it seriously or try to make it real. Perhaps I'm wrong, but as much as I disagree with what The New Yorker did, I don't disagree with their intentions, and now that the cover is out, the damage is done.

I think protesting, or at least letting the magazine know how your respond to it is absolutely correct. But at the same time, it will pass, like everything in this society, if we let it. The more we keep it as an issue, the longer it will last as a meme and a potential distraction from the message and the task at hand. Think about how many people would never see that cover if it didn't become news. Well it is news now, but we don't want to keep it in the public eye any longer than it has to be. Pull the cover? Maybe. Not likely, but it could happen. But other than that, we're not doing ourselves any favors by keeping this alive.

So I think I will call the magazine and rebuke them, but not calling them names or being abusive, but suggesting that their editorial staff should, perhaps, show a little more oversight and be a little more careful about the real effect they might have. I will politely suggest that the cover could be replaced by something more - artful.

Then I'll let it go and move on, unless some talking head on some TV show starts mouthing off with lies and distortions. That's who I really want to go after.

Others may want to take a more extreme approach toward the magazine, and I wouldn't even think to try to talk you out of it. I'm just speaking for myself.

Inartful, to say the least.

I think we're all missing the point. As many have noted, those who read this mag may "get it." However, to me, it looks like this mag is attempting to gain circulation dollars by appealing to those who profess to "reluctantly" admit, or unabashedly howl - that there may be, or is, some truth to certain elements depicted in the cover. Call me a cynic, but how's the mag's bottom line doing lately?

I think the cover is offensive and damaging for the Obama campaign.
The cable news media is going to headline this all week, and spread the image to those who aren't so familiar with The New Yorker, low-witted viewers are going to see the image and confirm the false lies that conservatives have already pushed out there about Obama. They are not going to see it as satire.

I looked at the previous New Yorker covers and they were far less obscene as this.

If the whispers and rumors suggested that Obama was responsible for torturing prisoners or that he watched without care as the citizens of New Orleans drowned or that he joked about WMD in the Oval office as soldiers were dying in Iraq, then the material would certainly be too offensive for even the New Yorker to satirize. But since it's only about maligning the character of a Democratic presidential candidate and his wife burning the American flag and honoring a portrait of someone responsible for the deaths of 3,000 Americans, well that's laugh out loud funny.

I remember in history class how the satirists of the past presented Blacks and Hawaiians as ape-like, Asians as rats, Jews with horns and much worse. The purpose was not to shed light on the misinformation, but rather to reinforce the stereotypes and prejudices so that these people could be dehumanized, making it permissible in some minds to steal from them and to attack and butcher them.

I agree with many of those who have posted here. This cover is an offensive mockery.

The woman on the cover appears to be a secular Western feminist, probably Angela Davis. The man appears to be an Islamic cleric. As we know, it would be sacrilege for a cleric to engage in lewd relations with Angela Davis.

Do not allow me even to start talking about the way this cover parodies the ritual of velayat-i-faqih, or American-flag-burning.

Mistake me not; I completely get the joke. I understand that in New York it is considered amusing to represent many sacrileges. If this magazine would stay in its place, and be read only by the depraved citizens of New York, I would not feel that it fell under my jurisdiction.

Unfortunately, there is a chance that it will find its way to my country, where it may bewilder and confuse many of the yokhels, or so-called "swing voters."

This left me no choice. I have convened the Supreme Islamic Council of Najaf, and we have declared a fatwa on the New Yorker. Many of us also cancelled our subscriptions.

WTF!?!
This has left me dumbfounded. I must have missed listening in on a white meeting somewhere. When did hostile open racism come back into vogue?

If dipshits out there like Glenn Beck or Bill O'Reilly or half the other sound biting morons on board at CNN decide to do a close up of the cover, they might have to explain the irony. I can also assure you that the core viewership of fox barely graduated from high school and don't subscribe to the New Yorker. They don't know irony. They think thats what you do to wrinkled clothes.

I am curious to see how many of the members of the fourth estate will actually have the guts and character to explain the irony. This may turn out just fine.

Right now, some Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh or Clever Bulldog is writing a tirade. The subject matter revolves around how liberals don't even get their own humor, that this is another example of humorless liberal political correctness, and that liberals only believe in freedom of the press when it suits their humorless liberal political agenda.

TPMers raising this non-issue to the level of an outrage makes them correct, as impossible as that might appear to anyone who has an axon to rub against a dendrite.

You are gilding a turd, encasing it in lucite, engraving the trophy it with loving words, mounting against a dayglo background and handing it to brainless idiots to be used to help in their campaign to club your candidate to death.

You made Sean Hannity's week. Ann Coulter loves you.

Put it another way: The New Yorker didn't hurt Sen. Obama. You did.

Much ado about nothing. Trying to attract attention is all.

That cover is an example of the Left at its self-destructive worst. They think it's funny. They think the satire is "obvious". In the meantime, Middle America looks at that cover and doesn't get the joke. God damn the New Yorker. Let's see 'em put a picture of a wheelchair-bound, diapered John McCain on the cover next. Let's see the laughs that gets from the Right.

We just may manage to lose this election after all.

I think the problem is that the cover will get so many more "viewers" than "readers" so it will be taken out of context. I'm an avid Harper's reader, I don't read Atlantic, New Yorker, or even that much Vanity Fair, so I knew nothing of the New Yorker take on things. I saw the cover and had a flash-sick feeling, and got over it. But I thought, Huh, another right-wing magazine that's gone a bit too far. New Yorker readers will get "the joke" but way more people will just see the cover and think "huh, that's kind of what I thought/heard". If Harper's had done it, you wouldn't have seen anything until you got to the article, then you'd have seen the (great-in-context) image and probably thought "Great!" in context.

I appreciate the opposition to this cover but find myself less affected by it. None of the misconceptions and stereotypes that this cover lampoons are exactly new; these absurd accusations called out in the illustration have been trumpeted, responded to and have not stuck except for those dimwits eager to believe them. And the cretins who believe right-wing chicanery do not need this cover to reinforce their views; they are deeply ideological and will likely stay that way for the rest of the campaign, if not time (I still hear Gore jokes about earth tones and inventing the internet). This cover mocks the absurdity of idiots believing truly unbelievable stuff.
The trouble is, we live in the time where halfwits can find "truth" and "facts" in flashes on Fox News, viral e-mails and rumors. Many of the concerns voiced on this thread reflect concern that such dolts will see this image as emblematic of all the unsavory truths about the Obamas. However I tend to think that the New Yorker cover would likely not find its way into their world without a media firestorm propelling it there -- and that's happening.
At the end of the day those who would be see this cover as true in any sense are not New Yorker readers and they more than likely already hold those views. Are we really so scared that satire on one cover of one magazine will influence those currently withholding opinion?
Let us remember, too, that the New Yorker has consistently given us tremendous writing that has exposed Abu Ghraib and many of the darkest, most hidden and nefarious of wrongs perpetrated by the current administration and its myriad machinations. Sy Hersh, Hendrik Hertzberg and George Packer alone have done more to expose truth than any outlet in the MSM.

Jeff,

I think you've got it right. The cartoon is a typical New Yorker cartoon and "makes sense" in that context but in no other. Publishing it was as dumb as [pick a new yorker's example of some regional folk they think are especially dumb]... really stupid and being stupid typically causes damage. This already has.

One of the big issues in this election should be the "positive polarization" that has been so successful for the Republican party. Some call it wedge politics. It is always based on some superficial distinction (race, class, education) or human situation that only affects those directly involved (choice, gay marriage, etc) and a false sense of superiority and empowerment.

National politics are supposed to about our common concerns. I do not expect folks to like me or have the same tastes and vice versa. That would be a foolish concern that can only lead to false divisions where common concerns are being considered.

I'd like to hope that events like this and this election itself brings the mutual destructive of this into sharp focus. Most of the time, I think, national politics should be pretty boring. The human cost of this kind of excitement is pretty high.

I do not think much of heroes and saints and villains and demons and all the drama around that. Our power comes from our ability to cooperate with each other when necessary despite differences. That is hard enough to do with the folks in our own community and even in our own family.

The folks at the New Yorker proved themselves to be just like the rest of us: fallible humans. I don't think you can "fix" this kind of screw up. All you can do is to try a bit harder at not screwing up. I'd like to think the editors will make that attempt. It would be appropriate to acknowledge that a mistake was made and to offer no excuse or rationalization. The less said, the better. They will not be able to stop the reverberations.

Images stay longer in people's minds than words.

These images didn't need to be etched in the memory of anyone.

Welcome to a world where we pander to the lowest common denominator. Welcome to a world where a joke is only funny and irony only poignant when we are certain, absolutely certain, everyone will be in on the joke. I am actually disturb, not terribly surprised, but disturbed by this chain of logic. In fact, over the last few weeks I have heard people cry out in disgust against the New Yorker, against people criticizing Obama on FISA and against people who would dare question Obama's fidelity to his promises on Iraq.

Look, I want the Dems to win just as much as anyone else, but I will be damned if it'll be on the back of the world where humor and culture is dictated by the perception of the least amongst us. Everyone of you gets the joke, the joke is about how silly is this hatred and rumormongering. It is not making light of hatred itself, but rather lies so very implausible that the best we can do is mock and depict them. This is a very real picture of the time we are living in, and to provoke this kind of reaction indicates that the art has done its job and done its job well.

I am positive that there is no political downside to this, not even remotely. Discussion of this always entails a response and dialogue. You know why swiftboating worked? Because we ignored it. I promise, if the New Yorker has done a cartoon mocking Kerry's service ironically it would have been the best type of exposure for the Kerry campaign. This cover is not convincing a single person that Obama is Muslim who did not already believe that while it is likely to make quite clear to fence sitters that this is just how much credence these rumors have.

Even if this was a politically dangerous cover to Obama rather than helpful I still wouldn't care. One of the disturbing trends I have noticed on these boards is a complete lack of respect for people who don't agree with the so-called progressive principle. Everyone seems so concerned that people simply won't understand the irony intended or that they'll be spun by the GOP. Maybe the reason this happens so very often is that we don't respect them enough to make everyone a part of this great nation conversation. Political art is a great form of expression that shouldn't be denigrated by the PC-police, or worse the PC for Obama-police. We will win this election this fall, but if we want to win this country we have to have the temerity to believe that our convictions can stand up to criticism, art and expressions of all form.

Well I don't see anyone burning the editors at NYM or the cartoonist in effigy or the nation becoming Denmark over this.

On the other hand, I think it's perfectly fine for people to protest the reinforcement of offensive stereotypes. Sure, NYM can be a pretty damned good publication, but this is just snide and potentially destructive (to what degree I confess I cannot predict at this point).

How bad is it really for them to know the feeling of having their arrogant asses chewed out? Personally, I love the image of their phones ringing off the hook today and their emails and customer service databanks filled to overflowing with people who aren't telling them how simply divine they are for a change. Reality checks are good for the soul.

Sigh, but this isn't deserving of criticism, nor is it reinforcing stereotypes. It is only doing it because everyone assumes that the populace is too dumb to get in on the joke. That is the height of offensive, talk about arrogant. I am not sure the editors of the New Yorker are the ones that require humbling.

Liam, like many others in this debate, youre too quick to fall into an us vs them paradigm. The New Yorker's enemy is ignorance and dull-mindedness, which yes, often happens to coincide with the GOP/right wingers. Their enemy is not the McCain campaign.

Kudos to Marcus' comment above. Obama may be a fine presidential candidate, and surely his win will improve America's lot, but he is not the goal we should all strive for. If we sacrifice our rational faculties in a rush to pillory any and all perceived threats, we wont have anything left to enjoy the spoils of victory with.

Liam,

You argue that it would have been more "effective" to show the Obamas in church. This term is indicative of the larger problem with your view of this situation. The New Yorker is not a propaganda machine or an arm of the Democratic Party. Their job is not create the best view of Obama or support a cause, but rather create, in the case, art.

The art is ironic and satirical. It is a joke in a more serious sense, not as in ha ha ha, guffaw, guffaw, but the deeper humor that tells more about who we are. But I would also take exception with the idea that your idea would have been more effective. Look at the conversation we are getting about this. As I said earlier, this discussion is only going to be to the benefit of Obama. In the end, no new people are going to believe this because of a cartoon on the New Yorker's cover, but some just may be persuaded to realize how ironic all of this is.

But either way, everyone seems to be dancing around the bigger issue. These rumors are part of the zeitgeist of our time. It's no worse than when Time names a totalitarian dictator or otherwise reprehensible character as Time's Person of the Year. Art need not be politically expedient, it should merely convey both truth and beauty, and the passion this has sparked has made it worthy.

The New Yorker's automated response to my email about The Cover:

Thank you for writing. We appreciate your comments and, if you have a question, we’ll do our best to respond. However, owing to the volume of correspondence, we cannot reply to every e-mail.

About this week’s issue: Our cover, “The Politics of Fear,” combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are. The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall— all of them echo one attack or another. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to prejudice, the hateful, and the absurd. And that's the spirit of this cover. In this same issue you will also see that there are two very serious articles on Barack Obama inside—Hendrik Hertzberg's Comment, (http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/07/21/080721taco_talk_hertzberg) and Ryan Lizza's 15,000-word reporting piece on the candidate's political education and rise in Chicago (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_lizza).

Things are going dark as we enter the long tunnel of our own Stalinist security state. Habeas Corpus is gone and in its place we will have show trials. Privacy is gone and in its place is a government database maintained by the NSA, a super computer emulation of the Russian GRE and KGB surveillance apparatus. And so on. All if this is motivated by fear. Then along comes an image, a cartoon that satirizes this fear. What is the reaction? More fear. It is too subtle and will be misunderstood or misused. Its intended audience will appreciate it but someone, somewhere may not. And much more as you can read in the comments here.

And so isolated, vulnerable and left in the dark we retreat into our minds only to face one more fear, the fear of being identified as “intelligent.”

I'm joining the conversation late (about 180 comments in) so if i'm repeating any one, i apologize.

Personally, the cover doesn't rile me up. I see and understand why some are offended, but i myself am not.

Some context: When i was writing for my high school newspaper, i wrote a piece of satire. At least, i though it was satire. Apparently, I was the only person in the school who "got it". It was basically me pointing out, perhaps in a not very clever way, that our school was rather clique-ish. I pointed out all the various "cliques" and blasted them.

Now, my intention was to show that the way we divide ourselves amongst each other is rather silly. that really we're all basically a part of the same group.

However, I discovered that what may be obvious satire to some, is just a mean-spirited diatrabe to others.

My story caused a big hullaballo, but in fairness i was an equal opportunity offender. Everyone who deserved it, got a shot. the principal came down and yelled at me and told me i had no business writing junk like that for the school paper.

I tried to make my case, but i've always been better in written arguments and debates than in verbal confrontations so I just sat there and took it.

That experience made me more sympathetic to people who push the envelope and make us confront things we may not like to in a manner we're not used to dealing with it. It also strengthened my belief in the 1st amendment and my freedom of speech.

We must not forget that even the most offensive, disgusting works(i'm not grouping this particular cartoon in here) have a right to be published.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant. If the ideas are wrong, publish them and they will be proven so. If they are right, they just might change the world.

Anyways...

It's just a freakin' cartoon.

If the No.1 reason I'm growing to detest my homeland is the unchecked power of the right, the No. 2 reason is the brain-dead level of its political discourse. Here's a rare piece of magazine-cover content that gives readers credit for having a high school-level grasp of satire, and even in this forum, most of the lefties with whom I'm politically allied either don't get the joke or assume all dem rubes living outside Manhattan are going to read the cover as a right-wing hatchet job. Looks like hope takes a little too much audacity for some of y'all.

So go ahead and whine that the New Yorker is irresponsible for not assuming its readers are pea-brained. And watch while our collective IQ keeps drying up like a Brazilian rainforest.

Obama's entire success to this point is based on the premise that people are smarter, less bigoted and more willing to be challenged than they are widely assumed to be. So far, it has been the most inspiring thing I've observed in politics since perestroika. If the New Yorker cover had the power to work in any significant way against him -- and sheesh, people, it doesn't -- he'll lose this election by a landslide anyway. The "outrage" expressed by the Obama and McCain camps is a transparent and harmless bit of campaign kabuki, like Obama sticking a flag pin on his lapel once in a while.

A point that hasn't been noted, by the way: Imagine some Dittohead who wouldn't otherwide pick up the New Yorker interprets the cover to suggest it supports his worldview -- and, intrigued, buys a copy. And gets to the article inside and finds himself reading a well-written article on Obama that subverts his cherished prejudices, or at least forces him to think. That's worth 10 people who'll tear the cover off and pin it up on the bulletin board at the KKK meeting.

How about a satirical cover of McCain next week??

Lets compose it.. McCain Hugging Bush, both dressed in SS uniforms... in the background is Cindy in floozie costume, while first wife and kids are sobbing in dire straights in the background...And of course his black baby from the 2000 primary season....In his hand is the 49th page of the (unreleased) medical report certifying a diagnosis of Alzheimer's and uncontrolled aggressive tendencies
On the wall is a picture of McCain in a North Vietnamese prison hospital -- being implanted with a chip in his brain (Wow--he really is the Manchurian candidate) ... There is also a framed letter of thanks from Bin Laden for not wanting to target him in Pakistan

Maybe other readers can add more images to help the cartoonist on his next satirical cover???

We can't run scared.

Fox is going to find something to wave around and be incensed over, and yes, they will use this cover against him. But without the cover they would find something else to feed people's fears.

The voters that we have to win over do not do nuance. That is why W. and Reagan spent sixteen years in the White House. The races get decided by those who vote based on who the would enjoy having a beer with. Reagan and W. won that group.

You never hear anyone claiming that a key voting block is those who you would enjoy having a martini with while discussing the new edition of The New Yorker. Like it or not; Joe and Jill Six Pack will elect the next President, as they have decided all of them from FDR to the present day.

"...those very same elitist intellectuals that subscribe to the NewYorker and have 5thAve partys rarely have, if ever, a person of color in their midsts...so if truth be told...they consider it being satirical of the very same fearmongering and racial slurs they discuss openly at those very 'colorless' social gatherings."

I call bullshit on this. That statement sounds a whole lot like the ani-intellectualism pervading the GOP, the school of thought that seems to say that any educated (self-educated or otherwise) or well-informed person is an "elitist" and not a "real American."

Moreover, your suggestion that the magazine's subscribers engage in wholesale racial slurs at their 5th Avenue, lily-white parties tells me that you've had zero exposure to the people you're referring to. I know no one who meets the description you've given. I'm grateful that the bizarrely divided America you describe - one in which pinot noir/latte-drinking, Volvo driving, New Yorker-reading elitists hang out in their million-dollar artist's lofts, making fun of the Nascar-loving, church-going dummies in the red states - isn't the reality.

Like every generalization, there are elements of truth in there (having lived for over a decade in Nebraska before moving to Seattle, I can vouch for that), but thankfully, most people aren't quite so shallow and clueless. My in-laws are deeply conservative Christian fundamentalists, and are perfectly aware of my views on politics and religion (pretty much the polar opposite of theirs), and yet we adore each other. Why? Because there's more to people than the god they worship (or don't), who they vote for, or the magazines they read.

Let's take a breath, shall we? There's really no cause to assume the very worst about thousands of people you've never met, regardless of what experience put such a large and unsightly chip on your shoulder.

PBS Newshour has a segment coming up on the New Yorker cover, so it looks like it is much larger than a just a blogosphere storm in a teacup.