New Yorker Paints Obama As Terrorist

So my stack of Barack Obama magazine covers grows by one.

But this one, The New Yorker's Obama terrorist cartoon, goes to the bottom of the pile.

That spot's currently held by Radar magazine, which plastered a bare-butt Obama and a horny-looking Hilliary on the cover last year. (Beware of slide 13 in the gallery)

First off, I'd never be caught dead reading a copy of the latte-drinking-elitist-mag that is The New Yorker. And if Obama was really a latte-drinking-elitist (like some of his white supporters are) he would not have come out with an ultra-sensitive response to The New Yorker's "The Politics of Fear" cover story. ...

Barack Obama Magazine Covers

Which cover do you like the most?

RollingStone

The Atlantic Monthly

Time
Oct. 23, 2006

Black Enterprise

New York Magazine

Vibe

Newsweek

NY Daily News

Ebony

Obama's response was to call the piece "tasteless and offensive."

Exactly, tasteless and offensive are the first two considerations magazines make when deciding what goes on the cover. The third consideration is "What's Britney Spears doing?"

Crazy magazine covers always remind me of how much the business is hurting, especially those publications in the high-brow, New York-centric political-culture and commentary genre.

On the one hand, Obama pictured as a flag-burning-turbin-wearing-fist-jabbing-Muslim-terrorist is satire, meant to be funny, but true, and bring home the Right's ridiculous view of presidential hopeful "Barack Hussein."

The cover "combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them (the images) for the obvious distortions they are," the magazine's editor said.

This is the sort of news latte-drinking-elitist readers thirst for.

On the other hand, when will this Obama Muslim terrorist satire/joke get old?

Well, don't judge a book by its cover, says a Midwest blogger who actually read the story published in the New Yorker.

New Yorker writer Ryan Lizza eloquently demolishes Obama's oft-stated contention that he's a change agent.

"...He has always played politics by the rules as they exist, not as he would like them to exist," Lizza writes. "He runs as an outsider, but he has succeeded by mastering the inside game."

The cover is satirical and will receive most of the attention, he said. The article is a detail-filled piece on Obama's political skills and should get the most attention.

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