http://www.politicalpitstop.com/2008/07/13...o-and-an-ak-47/

Try slanderous and repugnant. I hope it costs them more subscriptions than it costs Obama votes.

Ah, The New Yorker, trying to be chic...they failed on the mark with this cover...I'm sure on some of the more conservative blogs there will be much rejoicing over this little tidbit of slander!!!

Dear Sirs: I commend you on your brilliant and very original cover art, showing Senator and Mrs. Obama precisely the way their political opponents are describing them. Well done! Satirists frequently go for rhetorical overstatement, but that was clearly impossible in this case.
I recall another candidate once, a failed oilman who bought a pig farm and insisted that he was a "cowboy." Parodists then mocked him mercilessly by depicting him as a "cowboy." I wonder where that candidate is now. Do you suppose being thought of as a "cowboy" has hurt him any?

I believe their intentions were good and there is nothing wrong with it, in and of itself, however, there are too many out there that would take this drawing literally. That is my problem with it, the high risk of potential damage to obama.

It could have a positive impact and make people realize how stupid these rumors are and how the media is unfairly attacking Obama. On the other hand, it could just as easily do a ton of damage to obama if people think it is some kind of true "tell all" sort of thing or it is helps spread the rumors.

Missing your point here Happy. Bush embraces his faux cowboy image and it surely helped him with those impressed with that kinda stuff. It promoted what Bush would have us believe as the truth. Now a New Yorker cover that showed him drunk and snorting coke, that would'a been a different matter. Well, maybe not.

I don't think the people who want to believe this junk appreciate either the New Yorker or satire, but they'll love this as a validation of their dishonesty.

If the MSM ignored this as satire, this wouldn't be an issue (pardon the pun). The New Yorker is flagrantly liberal, and if the cable news networks weren't such pimps of controversy, the right wouldn't have ever seen this in large numbers. I'm surprised by the Obama campaign's retort - they should have ignored the cover and thanked the New Yorker for their glowingly flattering article.

that all being said, It might have been a better idea to put the controversial image in a thought balloon over a drooling rabid caricature of Sean Hannity, and people might have gotten a clearer idea of its meaning.

...and smart. I have a real hard time accepting that they didn't know the effect this would have. Now, if they'd used it between the covers to illustrate the accompanying article, I don't think anyone would have a problem with it. Liberal or not, it seems they put short term profit above the principles they espouse. Hope it bites 'em in the arse.

Well, there's that perspective, or there's the perspective that they may just draw in some idiots who believe the the humor as truth and read an article that enlightens them...
regardless, it has gotten their name in the headlines, and will probably create an uptick in their readership, if not their subscriber list. yes, its capitalistic, but it may employ valuable curiosity and research that would actually work to inform the public. Considering the angling toward the center that Obama's campaign has shown in recent weeks, this may just energize the left enough to shut them up about inevitable campaign tatics that he had to use in his 50 state strategy.

I have a hard time believing that they would have done this kind of thing if they thought it would hurt his numbers in any way. Do you think anyone would be screaming "bloody murder" if "the nation" had done this?

The New Yorker is read almost solely by liberal New Yorkers, and progressive intellectuals nation-wide. More people SHOULD read it, and if this controversy should allow that to happen, I doubt people other than right wing media pundits would have a problem with it, over the long-term. It's not like Murdoch is about to buy them out.

I understand your point, soon2be, and as I said previously, they could have clarified it a bit, but I doubt it will change the number of idiots who think he's an anti-american muslim in the first place, and I prognosticate that this whole issue will blow over by wednesday. Except on fox and 527 t-shirts...
If it does end up on t-shirts, the New Yorker is fully within their rights to sue the producers for copyright infringement.
Maybe they're smarter than we give them credit for?

One thing you have to say about The New Yorker, they were smart businesspeople, to increase their name recognition after putting this out on their cover, now I know the magazine is for the most part a very liberal newsource for intellectual left leaning folks, but after listening to the liberal radio all day it does seem their circulation department is taking a hit by cancellations from these self same liberal readers!!

most of the progressives in this country read "harpers" rather than the new yorker. those who read the new yorker don't feel offended by it. check out "hardball's" coverage today with a public statement by the author of the article. He's not upset because they "took it out of context"!

It's a journal of New York City lifstyle and politics. It has never claimed itself to be fair and balanced, eventhough it makes more sense than most weekly news shows. This wasn't meant to be plastered across the national stage, unless it was...
In which case I'm sure Billo's fantasies of a george soros funded lesbian mafia of islamic illegal guatemalan midgets that are responsible for a push toward a pinko, commie, daughter-molesting, loofah wielding bunch of pot-heads taking power and bowing to mecca with the "nuclear button" under their forheads as they begin to prostrate themselves to Iran... will be realized, and the power hungry slave drivers will be wheeled off to citizen service camps, where they'll change the bedpans of the soldiers whose lives the considered over when they signed on the dotted line in exchange for an ability to gain their life back, even if injured while serving the cause of "freedom."

While this controversy rages, the WH quietly mentions that it might increase troop witdrawl rates...
something here is a "foul"

Except the picture over the fireplace should be of Jesse Helms but then too many people would of seen that as a positive.