THE NEW YORKER COVER GOES BEYOND SATIRE IN A COUNTRY THAT IS SO DESPERATELY UNDEREDUCATED 80% OF THE PEOPLE PROBABLY DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE WORD “SATIRE” MEANS.
DAVID REMNICK MAY NOT UNDERSTAND THE WORD “SATIRE” AS FULLY AS HE THINKS!
When first I viewed the controversial cover of The New Yorker magazine, I was perplexed. The first question I ask myself was is the cartoonist attempting to expose, denounce or deride Barack Obama.
My second thought was what a wonderful gift to the barbaric right wing of the Republican Party who will have this is the hands of every potential voter in magazine, newspaper, television and cable ads from now until the election.
My third thought was, “Why would one of the most liberal publications in the country want to put fodder on the already burning fires of Obama’s most ardent enemies?” Why would the New Yorker want to provide “aid and comfort” to the enemy in the midst of the most important election of the century?
The absurdity of Barack Obama in a Muslim garment is a truly humorous image only to those who do not know better. According to a recent poll by USA Today, 10 percent of the American people believe that Obama is a Muslim and some of that 10 percent believe he is cahoots with al Qaeda or some other Jihadist group prepared to take over the U. S. The cartoon did nothing to refute that lie.
Michelle Obama, dressed in Arab garb, with an AK 47 slung over her shoulder while exaggerating to the absurd every thing for which the prudes in our society have criticized her, simply added flourishes to the image that Barack’s caricature portrays.
Obama has been flogged by the barbaric right wingers for not wearing a flag on his lapel, for not placing his hand over his heart during the pledge of allegiance and the singing of the “Star Spangled Banner,” they have yet to accuse him of burning the flag.
While I was upset that one of “ours” would run such a cover in the midst of an all ready overheated presidential campaign, it was the burning flag that went beyond the bounds of civility. Never add fuel to the fires the enemies have started. The New Yorker’s cover did just that.
Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines satire thusly: “the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing or deriding vice, folly, etc.”
Within the confines of Webster’s definition of satire, the cover missed the target and did more damage to Obama’s aura to those he is having extreme difficulty in reaching than the editor ever intended.
I personally feel it was irresponsible journalism for a publication whose readers believes it is “pro-Obama”.
More importantly, it is not the subscribers to The New Yorker he is laboring to win over between now and the November election. Most of them are already in his corner.
It is the poor, uneducated, the unemployed many of whom are viciously circulating the rumors about his patriotism.
It is the underclass that is manufacturing the outlandish lies about his religion and dispersing them in the mails (because their target audience does not own a computer nor have the knowledge to use one),
And it is these same people who are the source of the rumor mills and the innuendos they are inventing about Michelle Obama’s character.
About this I am certain, where Obama is fighting for his life is with the undereducated, the financially impoverished, and the culturally deprived. They are the people the media has determined he will never reach, who will vote against their own best-interest if the only option open to them is voting for a man of a different race, religion or ethnic background.
I would hope that the next time the NewYorker attempts to apply a little of its brand of satire on the “enemies” of Obama in the good name of “equal time” and in a rare application of the “fairness doctrine” management may want to think about who, in these days of the 24-hour news cycles, you will be reaching and who will be made aware of your magazine probably for the first time on the mainstream, network news programs.
It will not be playing to its normal specific target audience that shares its values, experience, education or familiarity with the New York lifestyle.
12:19:47 PM 
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