This is the cover of the New Yorker this week. Thankfully I discontinued my subscription a few years ago, so my money didn't go into making this monstrosity.
It's every rightwing email in one loathesome caricature. Obama as a Muslim, certainly a foreigner, perhaps Osama himself; Michelle Obama as Angela Davis, or a Black Panther, or a member of Osama's bodyguards; the terrorist fistjab (thank you E.D. Hill for that turn of phrase), Osama bin Laden in the picture on the wall, the American flag burning merrily in the fireplace, all set in the Oval Office.
I look forward to their companion cover on McCain. A caricature of him in a pair of Depends underwear, holding out his empty wallet, to his wife encrusted with diamonds, asking for a little more?
A cartoon of McCain depicted as a canary, singing "Vietnam Rules, America Drools" at the Hanoi Hilton?
Or a cartoon showing McCain kicking his first wife and kids to the curb, her cane and their little baseball caps flying, as he holds onto Cindy McCain's miniskirt made of $100 bills?
Or just a naked McCain, from behind, his wrinkled white ass as he screws Uncle Sam (us)?
Hey, it's satire, right, and all's fair in modern journamalism. Wes Clark couldn't tell the truth, that being shot down and held captive don't qualify you to be President. The media attacked him like he'd said John McCain wears a G-string and pasties under his suit. But "journalists" and "publishers" and "the media" can put out complete and utter garbage like this cover and will hide under their handy First Amendment umbrella. Free press! Free press!
How free is a press that, like Chatty Cathy on steroids, regurgitates conservative propaganda every time the string is pulled?
The hitjob piece it illustrates can be read here, but don't miss the soft wet kiss the same writer, Ryan Lizza, wrote about McCain in February in the very same magazine. Or save yourself the time. Shorter Ryan Lizza: Obama bad, McCain good.
Lizza has a long, sad history of advancing right-wing memes, as it was he who named the Democratic plan for withdrawing our troops from Iraq "the slow-bleed plan", a phrase which was eagerly adopted by Fox News and their Republican overlords.
Journalism is dead. Long live the rotting press corpse.
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6 comments:
Truly disturbing. Presumably the New Yorker will claim that the cover is a parody of right-wing thought, but I think it is way too similar to real-world propaganda to qualify as harmless satire.
There's nothing in the cover that identifies it as a right-wing fantasy, which is another problem.
Now if it was some poor person filling the tank of their SUV with $4.25 gas with this thought bubble over their head, that might be funny. Or someone sitting at the computer looking for a job, or holding their 401K covered with red ink in their hand and seeing this thought bubble as they look at an email. I might have been less offended, but I don't think so.
I'm a big fan of Newsfare, BTW.
Thanks, truth.
Putting that stupid Obama image inside some other context is a good idea. Maybe someone clever could now photoshop that whole magazine cover into a different graphic environment that pokes fun at the New Yorker's choice of imagery.
I appreciate your kind words about Newsfare. I used to post onto the site almost every day, but after the Democrats in Congress started voting in favor of Bush's legislation, I got discouraged, almost fatalistic about US politics. Now I only post when I think I have something genuinely informative to say.
FISA and no abortions for mental distress got me down last week so I know what you mean.
I need to learn Photoshop.
I was just shut out or I should say letters to the editor online at the NYer is temporarily offline. How conventient! If they want to do a spoof illustration they should try Christopher Hitchens on a water table etc. and seeing a vision of Mother Theresa.
When did Rupert Murdock buy that publication? The NYer.
The Obama bullshit illustration is not art! It is offensive.
I guess the New Yorker is living a rarified bubble that still thinks
that Jim Crow is alive and well. Do-Dah. Do--dah.
They were once a great American Institution but sad to say nothing in America these days is worth much including the taste in wit that The New Yorker used to represent.
no no this is not "jumping the shark." this is a new entry in the classification of media. this has to have its own name, "screwing the obamas" comes to mind. from today any medium that does this to a public figure will be said to have "screwing the obamas". and i am not exactly sure what it is that they have done here other than it is meant to shock us - to get maximum publicity for the magazine and to bring no added value of any kind into this world.
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