The New Yorker: Laughing with You, Not at You?

Okay, so I've been relunctant to comment on the now infamous New Yorker Cover Caricature slated for release on Monday, July 21, 2008, as I wanted to develop a complete and fair opinion before giving some crude response. For those who haven't seen the cover (Pictured Below), it displays Obama in a turban as he fist bumps Michelle who is wearing camoflauge, an AK 47 and an Afro. The backdrop is no less symbolic, as they are supposedly standing in the oval office, with an American flag burning fireplace, and Osama Bin Laden pictured above the mantle. (Wow, this picture is like a Where's Waldo game)

Now many have taken offense to this pictorial and noted it as 'inappropriate and unacceptable,' etc, and perhaps at first sight it is, but let's add some context to it and see if you feel the same way. 1) The New Yorker is an unapologetic liberal magazine and thus has no reason to seek to harm their presumed candidate of choice, in fact, the articles in the issue laud praise on Obama's rise out of and above Chicago politics. 2) Claims that this will confirm or re-ignite the fears of those rural, working-class voters that Obama is having a tough time winning over are pretty unfounded, not to say that rural working class people don't read The New Yorker, but THEY DON'T, according to a 2008 report on magazine subscribers, the average New Yorker Subscriber, is between the age of 45-50, with a median household income around $80,000, doesn't sound like working class America to me. 3) It's Funny!!! Maybe the Barack-Stars and Obama-Nation Citizens don't agree, but as a personal fan of The Colbert Report, The Daily Show, and Family Guy (all controversially satirical media outlets), I get the joke. Besides, with the team of lawyers surrounding Barack just waiting on a racially-motivated, hate-incriminating, libelous piece, no reputable, or piece of trash, magazine would ever get seriously close to calling Obama an American-hating Muslim, or Michelle an Afro-Centric terrorist.