The Cover

Is it funny?

Not so much. It took my breath away, but it did not make me laugh. Although, in the interest of full disclosure, the droll brilliance of the celebrated New Yorker cartoons is often wasted on my simple palate.

Should the Obama-nation be this angry?

Obama is not my guy--but, if he were, I would be crying foul, overflowing with contempt for the mainstream media. What I might say if the New Yorker did this to John McCain: "Would they do something like this to Barack Obama? Hell No!"

Of course, if the tables were turned, the other side surely would be saying: "lighten up, fellows. It is merely a cartoon. You Republicans need to have thicker skins."

Having said that, this seems mean-spirited and ugly.

What was the point?

Inoculation. This clunker of a cover was an obvious attempt by the New Yorker, an Obama-friendly den of sophisticates, to make opponents of their candidate seem ridiculous. As I have declared before on numerous occasions, the claim that Obama is actually a closet Muslim and, therefore, potentially an Islamist Manchurian Candidate is one of the most patently asinine accusations in all of American political history. No one with any sense gives this story any credence. Almost everybody (90 percent of Americans, according to recent polls) understand perfectly well that Barack Obama is an evangelical Christian (possibly from Kansas). Upon the foundation of that egregiously spurious claim, the cartoon connects a series of images that convey other less outlandish worries.

The Message: any concern you might have about Barack Obama is backward, ignorant, and possibly racist.

What went Wrong?

1. It wasn't funny. It was too New Yorkerish. There are too many people like me who aren't snarky and hip enough to appreciate this genre.

2. The satire was a bit too close to reality. Even the intended beneficiaries realized that the caricatures struck too close to home. In the midst of the satirical sketch, there is the "fist bump," which is actually a true staple of the Obama public personae.

The real problem: apart from the Muslim garb, the other gags are not so outrageous. There is a legitimate worry in Middle America that Michelle really is a limousine radical. Some Reagan Democrats really do fret that Barack may be a bit too naive when it comes to confronting terrorists. Floyd R. Turbo wonders why the Senator seems so uncomfortable with Old Glory as a unifying national symbol.

Although this was indisputably friendly fire, in the end, the New Yorker outsmarted itself and inflicted a non-lethal wound on Barack Obama.