Haven't read it yet, but here is the article that goes with the cover.

Artist on piece

If the artist has to explain it, it's not a very good joke.

Looking at the comments section below this piece, it's pretty clear that this fails as satire for a lot of people. It's provocative without delivering a clear intent. (One comment summed it up well. If this image had appeared on The National Review, there would be outrage. On the New Yorker, it's perplexing.)

On the other hand, I thought the Ahmedinejab cover was funny.

Knowing the New Yorker I immediately knew it was intended as satirical. I wouldn't have been bothered. Being on The National Review I would know the intent was not satirical (or that if such was claimed it was more likely to be a sham).

Intent matters. The problem is that when it is sitting on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, the majority of people walking by who see it won't have any idea of that context.

So it was probably more appropriate as an accompaniment inside the magazine than as the cover. Or the cover needed something to make it more explicit (though New Yorker covers don't really use headlines so can't really explain the artwork).

But I guess the cover is doing its job. People are talking about it and most likely are buying the mag now...

I am aggressively not buying it in protest.

Dragging this back up since I was out of touch while this news broke.

As Alex says, knowing where the New Yorker stands, I know it's obviously satire. But I think it's still a questionable decision as for the majority of people, all they see is the image and do not grasp the context, and as an image with no context it just reinforces the ridiculous notion that does exist in many voters' minds that Obama is indeed a closet terrorist. Poor judgment on the part of the New Yorker editorial folks, imo.

I realized I didn't say this - I think the piece was poorly done and doesn't make the point he was trying to make.

Maybe it wouldn't have happened if Obama's right turn doesn't look now like it's his Swift Boat moment and turning point.

Yes, every democratic nominee does it. But Obama seeming like every other democratic nominee kinda takes the wind out of the sails that blew him to the nomination.


I think the cover art is a symptom of a failing campaign. Obama's looking like just another pol ... which, to those who've bothered to study his campaign history, is exactly what he is.


But he better start wearing the Hope Candidate disguise again, or he can expect much worse treatment from the press, from his base and from voters in the Fall.

I just do not know how Jesse Jackson has had any credibility for the last, oh, couple decades or so, and now that it was revealed he dropped the "N" bomb in his didn't-know-the-mic-was-on moment (in case you haven't heard, he accused Obama of talking down to "N"s).

I'm tempted to go into a racial discussion of acceptable racism vs. unacceptable racism, but this isn't the place for it, I suppose.