The impending publication of the New Yorker with the cover featuring a political caricature of Senator and Mrs. Obama raises a series of important questions that have, in the past few hours, attracted significant discussion on Daily Kos and other blogs. I would like to raise three of these questions here.
Could the satiric intentions of the article's author and the artist who drew the image have been accomplished in a way that was both meaningful and respectful?
Has the New Yorker, in publishing this image on its cover, debased political discussion or participated in the vibrant tradition of American satire?
Assuming the editors of the New Yorker chose to publish the cartoon on the cover of the magazine in order to satirize vicious smears circulating on the internet, why do the smears continue to have traction with the American electorate despite the persistent demonstration that they are false?
Will the image on the cover of the July 21 New Yorker contribute to the refutation of the lies or will it perpetuate them in the consciousness of a significant sector of the electorate?
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