"Tastless and Offensive" per the Obama Team regarding the NYer Cover

That's how the Obama team feels about the NYer magazine cover.

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton called it "tasteless and offensive" and, according to Jake Tapper at ABC, another high-profile Obama supporter called it "as offensive a caricature as any magazine could publish."

This is for anyone that thinks this cover is funny, or is just political satire....

As an AA woman, I find this cover taseless.  Sorry if you don't feel the same.

Here's what' on the front page of Huffington Post.

Please read it, respond if you wish...

Who knows if they'll get this in Dubuque, but they sure aren't going to like it in Chicago: This week's New Yorker cover features an image of Michelle and Barack Obama that combines every smeary right-wing stereotype imaginable: An image of Obama in a turban and robes fist-bumping his be-afro'd wife, dressed in the military fatigues of a revolutionary and packing a machine gun and some serious ammo. Oh yes, this quaint little scene takes place in the Oval Office, under a picture of Osama bin Laden above a roaring fireplace, in which burns an American flag. All that's missing is a token sprig of arugula.

The illustration, by Barry Blitt,is called "The Politics of Fear" and, according to the NYer press release, "satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the Presidential election to derail Barack Obama's campaign." Uh-huh. What's that they say about repeating a rumor?

Presumably the New Yorker readership is sophisticated enough to get the joke, but still: this is going to upset a lot of people, probably for the same reason it's going to delight a lot of other people, namely those on the right: Because it's got all the scare tactics and misinformation that has so far been used to derail Barack Obama's campaign — all in one handy illustration. Anyone who's tried to paint Obama as a Muslim, anyone who's tried to portray Michelle as angry or a secret revolutionary out to get Whitey, anyone who has questioned their patriotism— well, here's your image.

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton called it "tasteless and offensive" and, according to Jake Tapper at ABC, another high-profile Obama supporter called it "as offensive a caricature as any magazine could publish."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

•  Camp Obama

  ...needs to learn to have a sense of humor.

  No, not offensive, sorry.  If I didn't find branding the GOP as "Grand old pedophiles" for the Foleygate of 2006 homophobic, or ageist depictions of Senator Clinton's wrinkles and laugh sexist, I am not going to find racism at the heart of a satirical fucking cartoon that serves as NYer cover art.  Particularly since it is attacking the right wing.  

  by Alec82 on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 02:13:13 AM PDT

  •  Where have you been?

    1.  A person who makes laws against homosexuals...then engages in, and most likely is homosexual.  Yes, I could mock that person.  Not for the homosexuality, for the hypocrisy.

    2.  Ageist and sexist comments have been decried here and elsewhere.  

    You really think a cartoon that draws Michelle with an afro, exaggerated lips, and gun as no big deal.  Because it's a cartoon?

    Where is the right wing in the cartoon?  You have added that here...but the magazine didn't.

    Just because you don't see it, I would ask you to put yourself in someone elses shoes.  With the history of racism in this country...do you really think eveyone will share your viewpoint?

    Many don't.  And your insisting that this isn't a big deal just makes this entire situation all the more horrible.

    by Lava20 on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 02:19:56 AM PDT

    •  The Right Wing...

      ...is the fucking target of the cartoon!

      OK, look, the NYer is such a bastion of liberal left thought that it went against an 80 year old tradition to endorse Kerry in 2004.  

      You really think a cartoon that draws Michelle with an afro, exaggerated lips, and gun as no big deal.  Because it's a cartoon?

      It isn't a big deal because they're spoofing right wing perceptions of her.  

      Just because you don't see it, I would ask you to put yourself in someone elses shoes.  With the history of racism in this country...do you really think eveyone will share your viewpoint?

      I would gladly do so...and no, not everyone will share my point of view.  If they did, that rat bastard wouldn't have ruined our country.  

      Look, does it use racial caricatures? Sure, Michelle has an afro...the point is that the RIGHT WING in this country is attempting to portray the Obamas as radical militants.  That is why it is a spoof of the right wing.  The piece is so over the top that it is difficult to understand how you could view it as anything but a parody.

      Just think:

      Osama portrait.

      Turban.

      Afro.

      Flag burning.

      Semi-automatic.

      I mean...the New Yorker is being over the top.  That's what this is...an over the top cartoon.

      by Alec82 on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 02:30:37 AM PDT

      •  I don't see the right wing in this cartoon.

        You provide context that the New Yorker should have.

        by Lava20 on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 02:38:56 AM PDT

        •  I see the right wing

          But...maybe I'm the only one.  Or at least in the minority.  To me it seems obvious they were spoofing the right wing.  I can agree to disagree on this point.

          You should apply for a diplomatic post, Lava, you are good at diffusing tension. ;-)

          by Alec82 on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 02:42:36 AM PDT

          •  45 minutes into Morning Joke.

            No mention of the rightwing or the media.

            by Lava20 on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 03:48:03 AM PDT

            •  But Fox and Friends figured it out

              Personally, I think the Obama camp should have embraced the cover and used it as an opening to attack the right wing media that embraces the "Politics of Fear".

              by MattR on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 04:03:49 AM PDT

              •  Embrace a cover...

                of his wife with exaggrated lips, an afro, and machine gun.

                Okay..............

                by Lava20 on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 04:15:34 AM PDT

            •  Can we have a cover of McCain...

              lying in his bed in a nursing home?  Maybe with a nursing assistant changing his "briefs"?

              I'm sure the media wouldn't complain about that one either...

              The New Yorker probably meant well with the story...but they should have known better.  The cover is bullshit.

              by CC Lee on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 04:05:49 AM PDT

              •  Chuck Todd...

                "A desperate attempt to sell magazines."

                by Lava20 on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 04:14:50 AM PDT

  •  They can and should have it both ways

    They can quietly laugh about it, and still demand a retraction.

    Keeping people out of balance as to what you can or cannot say about Barack is actually a really smart tactic.  While I agree with you about the cover, truth is, it's not at all wrong for the campaign to try to have it both ways here.

    Being a bit overly literal is smart media policy for a campaign.

    by mbayrob on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 02:44:28 AM PDT

  •  Right, right

    we should all "have a sense of humour" about something  so failed that it will be an ongoing weapon against the Obama campaign. It didn't work; it's a disaster. When satire is taken literally by ANY significant proportion of those hearing it, it becomes literal. I referenced earlier the hate "humour" of Andrew Dice Clay. He said he was satirizing morons, but when morons cheered and pumped their fists at his remarks, it was no longer satire no matter what he said.

    To me, this cover is as destructive and sabotaging as that Washington Post article about the "Obama's Muslim problem" and all the internet rumours about his Muslim connection. Sure, the article never SAID he had any "Muslim connections," just that people were saying it, and it allowed the Obama campaign to deny iy (although the article never said the rumours had been proved untrue by independent sources.) So the net effect was to further the rumours.

    by anastasia p on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 05:04:06 AM PDT

•  Playing the ref

  I don't think that the campaign has much to worry about.

  But "playing the ref" when you're dealing with the press is always a good idea.

  by mbayrob on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 02:41:37 AM PDT

•  Obama as the incumbent

  what you are seeing now is the portray of Obama as the incumbent meaning Liberal believe that he is going to win so they behave as if he have already won.

  i would say this to you dear diarist: take a deep breath and realize that white-America has more to lose in a McCain presidency then what Black-America can gain from Obama presidency.

  it is not "do or die" and Obama himself "should" articulate such a stand to ease the burden of many of his supporters.

  by jama on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 03:11:03 AM PDT

•  Once upon a time "Amos 'n Andy"

  was considered huge "fun" and even belonged to a humorous genre called "slapstick" or "blackface." So many agree this New Yorker cover is "tasteless" yet just "good satire." Many found blackface so back then, as well. Didn't change what it was at its heart.

  by MKSinSA on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 03:26:10 AM PDT

  •  Amos 'n' Andy

      Was a radio show that ran from 1928 to 1960.  Without a visual component, creators Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll (both white) depended upon voice acting to create the illusion that the characters they were playing were American blacks.  They only appeared in "blackface" in the unmemorable 1930 film Check and Double Check, which Gosden and Correll did not like; the experiment was not repeated.  When a television show was produced (1951-1953) it starred black actors Alvin Childress and Spencer Williams.

      Although much of the humor in Amos 'n' Andy is hardly palatable today, and the decision to cast white actors in black rôles was highly questionable (also, in  the 1928 entertainment world, inevitable), the satire of the show was not directed at blacks per se; rather, it used a white-imagined version of African-American life as a vehicle for a more general satire of human foibles and character types.

    by WIds on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 05:51:49 AM PDT

    •  Some poeple can excuse

      any degredation. Bravo for you.

      by MKSinSA on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 08:08:43 AM PDT

•  Put simply,

  If you have to work this hard to explain the joke, it probably wasn't that funny.

  by Rob Dapore on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 04:52:02 AM PDT

•  I find it tasteless as well

  and in the spirit of equal opportunity I expect the next cover to show Mcsame with his head up his A** and Cindy giving him a bottle of pills for his condition.

  by MariaWr on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 05:21:31 AM PDT