New Yorker lunacy

I’m very interested in the American Presidential election and was pretty shocked by the now infamous New Yorker magazine cover (left) depicting Barack Obama and his wife Michelle as terrorists / Muslims / flag-burning anti-christs etc. The logic of the magazine seems to be that they are satirising the attempts by the Right to depict Senator Obama as something he’s not but I can’t help but wonder why they thought that reinforcing those misperceptions was a way of combatting them. Both campaigns have been critical of the New Yorker, and rightly so, although you have to suspect that the McCain camp are secretly thrilled by it all. But even if you do accept that it’s satirical, it doesn’t seem particularly clever to me.

Oh, and if you’re reading this in America, why not click here?