Politics | 07/15/2008 8:45 am

World Weighs in on New Yorker's Obama Cover

By The Staff at wowOwow.com

A media frenzy has erupted over this week’s cover of The New Yorker magazine, which depicts Obama in one-piece Muslim attire and headdress fist-bumping his booted, Afro-wearing wife Michelle in camouflage clothing with an AK-47 and ammo-belt slung over her shoulder. They stand beneath a portrait of Osama bin Laden while the American flag burns in the fireplace – in the presidential Oval Office.

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement reported by CBS News: "The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create, but most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds agreed with the Obama campaign, calling it "tasteless and offensive," too.

Fox news released a statement from The New Yorker’s editors who said that the cover shouldn’t be taken literally. The cover "combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are," they said.

"The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall? All of them echo one attack or another. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to prejudice, the hateful and the absurd. And that’s the spirit of this cover," reads the statement.

What do you think of the cover?

198 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

Hey Lady Gator, et all;…just read all of the posts on the COVER CONTROVERSY..I think that there is another reason nyt published this cover…CASH..How much media have you read that was controversial and damaging, false…that sold the out the newstands? FOLLOW THE MONEY…What say you?

By dr hoodia thinkiam on 07/17/2008 1:14 pm

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sorry..new yorker not nyt

By dr hoodia thinkiam on 07/17/2008 1:51 pm

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dr hoodia - Follow the money is correct. At least in MHO. I would love to find out how many copies were sold. Yesterday I was looking at a newsstand and they were sold out! This day and age the print media is up against so much competition that they need a “winner”. This has been their winner for the year!! And, how much $$$ do you think they will receive from people who are interested in the cover ONLY! One day they will have an auction and this cover will be featured — so more $$ for the till. Again - typical New Yorker stuff! But boy did they hit a home run this time.

By Lady Gator on 07/18/2008 1:45 pm

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To quote your own wonderful, always intuitive Liz Smith: “I liked columnist and pundit Mike Barnicle’s comment - ‘Five people who live on Manhattan’s Upper East Side said, ‘Oh, this is sooo funny,’ and the New Yorker editors went with that’.” My only question is, where did they find 5?

By Tick Pyne on 07/17/2008 4:28 pm

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America is at war, people are losing their homes, their jobs, and are tightening budgets. Hopefully, we are not losing our sense of humor as well. This is political satire, and satire is “the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.” It has always been a little tasteless….that’s what gets your attention and makes it funny. Let’s not add “the ability to laugh” to the list of things Americans are doing without.

By Dallas Blues 2008 on 07/18/2008 3:00 pm

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Well I think it is dead on about Obama. As far as Michelle goes you can see hatred in her eyes when she is mad. After I read a piece about Oprah’s ex-boyfriend Stedman saying that Michelle was angry at Oprah for trying to take over obama and act like his wife, you saw on stage that Oprah sat between Obama and Michelle keeping them a part. I watched Michelle in that clip and every time she looked at Oprah you could see hatred in her eyes.

By JoAnna Selle on 07/19/2008 2:28 am

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Let’s not over-project. Eyes don’t always reveal how people really feel. Michelle has huge eyes, so do a lot of people. What you want to look at is her body language. What I want to know is if the New Yorker had ever considered a cover cartoon of Laura Bush in prison for killing someone in a car accident and George going AWOL and doing drugs? This cover of Obama and Michelle is sensationalism at its worst. The image is not funny.

By Didi Lorillard on 07/19/2008 7:47 am

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What would be compelling about a cover that readdressed a tragic car accident that a 17 year old girl was involved in decades ago? I can guarantee you that anyone involved in a fatal car accident, let alone one that was their fault, carries the pain and guilt of that incident with them for their entire life. The boy killed in that crash was a friend and classmate of Laura Bush and his father witnessed the accident from the car behind his. No politcal satire there, just tragedy.

By Dallas Blues 2008 on 07/19/2008 10:03 am

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JoAnna, Perfect example of how the cover of The New Yorker failed at satire. You think it confirms your feelings Obama when The New Yorker states the cover was a criticism of the smear campaign against Obama. Good satire would have made that point clearer.

By DeBúrca obj on 07/19/2008 11:55 am

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I’d like to comment on Immodesta Goddess’ comment about how she remembered Jesse Jackson’s remark about Himey town. Interesting to note that you are wondering how many Jews are on the staff of the New Yorker. Probably a few. Maybe more than a few. But I would bet they’re there as writers and editors. Also, you might as well know right now that among Jews, we always have said that we are aware that there would be a black president way before there would ever be a Jewish president (If that could ever happen). I remember my parents saying that back in the 50’s. If you recall the 50’s were not the best time for the black community. Personally, I thought that the cover was ridiculous. I think I am far from stupid, but I do not see how this is, in any way, humorous. I do believe that most of the American public is stupid, and will elect John McCain in November. I believe this because of the last election. I believe this because I have a college educated friend who calls me every day and tells me that she has more proof that Obama is a Muslim terrorist who will be elected and will have us living under an Islamic theocracy in no time. There are 6 voters in my immediate family. Five of us are voting for Obama. One of us likes McCain. He did not vote for Bush. Four of us hold dual citizenship, American and Israeli. So, kindly stop counting the Jews on the New Yorker’s staff. It’s offensive.

By emmy wunn on 07/19/2008 10:39 am

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Emmy, I sure hope you’re wrong. I fear you’re not.

By DeBúrca obj on 07/19/2008 11:57 am

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After reading some of the entries in this thread I no longer wonder how this country could have disgraced itself by electing Dumbya twice. I’m just more ashamed of it than I was at the time. I thought we, at least most of the educated among us, had grown beyond the religious intolerance and prejudice I’m reading in many of these posts.

By Sherrie Crews on 07/19/2008 4:41 pm

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I’m with you Sherrie. At first I blamed Dubya himself along with the help he gets from the right wing propaganda machine… but now it’s shifted to the people. People are lazy about getting information and too arrogant to even think they should HAVE to seek out real information, addicted to entertainment, and more ppl than I had realized are racist and ignorant of other religions and cultures.

By DeBúrca obj on 07/19/2008 7:08 pm

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Just can’t read twenty four pages of the New Yorker on any given day… I have the New Yorker third hand….friends of friends of friends…..because no one in my neighborhood reads it…we can’t give it away…..too many words, not enough pictures….. I would recommend to your attention if you are hungry for print…..like take it upstairs and read…..The Rolling Stone interview/info about Obama….and more to my point, the story about Turf Wars…(In the dreadful issue if the New Yorker) ….it’s about how not to have a lawn, y’all…pay attention, please, and grow something you might eat…… I thought is was horrible that Liza Donnelly got nailed for putting her cartoons there……. I guess it’s a whole bunch of us who have been in the absolute boondocks forever….yep…..so I’m not going to trash the New Yorker……..I’ve papered two and a half really big rooms …..just to keep the horsehair plaster and lathe in place, don’t you know….. Think maybe I’m not on the right thread….. Can’t wait for the Labor Day escapade with Lily, Jane and Edith Anne……..and where is Whoopi now that we need her ….? Where has she been… did you hear her conversation with Elizabeth? I really hate being ignored……. I could just talk to Liza forever……Cartoon stuff..that would be the oodles and oodles of old days of the New Yorker…. Well did we love the smart folks at the Algonquin round table or what……? I don’t know where to put this information…and maybe,clearly, it’s not here…….sorority blackball…?

By georgia fatwood on 07/20/2008 11:54 pm

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I think all of this beating of breasts over the New Yorker cover is a bit much. Anyone with a bit of a brain realizes that it is a summary of all of the outrageously ridiculous charges that Fox News, etal try to perpetrate to their audience of prejudiced idiots. By making such a fuss over it, you are giving a sort of legitimacy to the whole mind-set that you are trying to overcome. Grow up!

By Claire Fox on 07/21/2008 1:41 pm