New Yorker editor defends controversial Obama cover

[DeepModem Mom]

CNN: Mon July 14, 2008
New Yorker editor defends controversial Obama cover
From Alexander Mooney


The New Yorker cover published Sunday shows Barack and Michelle Obama with a flag burning in the fireplace.

(CNN) -- The editor of the New Yorker on Monday said he has no regrets about running a cover illustration that portrays Barack Obama in Muslim garb and wife Michelle Obama as a gun-toting militant, despite widespread criticism of the image....

***

"The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. "But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

***

David Remnick, the longtime editor of the highly-regarded publication, told CNN's "The Situation Room" that he believes the ironic intent of the illustration will be clear to most Americans.

"The idea is to attack lies and misconceptions and distortions about the Obamas and their background and their politics. We've heard all of this nonsense about how they're supposedly insufficiently patriotic or soft on terrorism," the The New Yorker editor said. "That somehow the fist bump is something that it's not. And we try to put all of these images in one cover, and to satirize and shine a really harsh light on something that could be incredibly damaging."...

***

Remnick, who has approved several provocative covers in the past -- including a recent illustration of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appearing to solicit gay sex in a bathroom -- says he isn't concerned Americans will misunderstand the illustration.

"I think you underestimate the intelligence of the American people, to be quite honest. Yes, there will be some people who will misunderstand it, not get it at first," he said. "But here we are on television, discussing something that's been a kind of subterranean theme in American politics, which is disgusting -- these lies about Barack Obama, about Michelle Obama. And so in fact we're not even satirizing the Obamas, we're satirizing these rumors, the lies that have fed into the politics of fear."

Remnick also defended his publication's use of satire in general, likening it to the work of popular television hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. "If there's no possibility for satire, if you always have to look for the joke that every -- absolutely everyone -- will get, you won't have Jon Stewart, you won't have Stephen Colbert," he said. "Stephen Colbert goes on and mocks right-wing commentary by pretending to be a right-wing commentary. In a way this is Colbert in print."...

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/15/obama.cover/index.html

[Captain Hilts]

1. He's another wealthy Ivy League educated kid.

The press is rife with them.

[happynewyear]

2. fire Remnick

and make sure he cannot collect any unemployment benefits. Let him rot in his own stinky juice!

:dem: :kick:

[aspergris]

3. He respects the american people

"I think you underestimate the intelligence of the American people, to be quite honest."

I agree. Much of the disagreement here centered on the belief that the american public is too dumb to get it

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. Unfortunately, the majority of the responses here, on a progressive,

leftie, intellectually advantaged board, tends to prove him wrong.

[sshan2525]

5. This is the first time I've weighed in on this....

I have no idea what all the fuss is. The New Yorker has the right to put anything it wants on its cover, period. The only motive it should consider is whether the cover will appeal to its subscriber base. Is that a hard concept to digest? The magazine is not published for freepers, morons, rednecks, etc. It is aimed at a literate type of person who would understand the satire intended. What anyone, at whom the the magazine is not aimed, cares is irrelevant. For example, I have no interest in guns, so what I think of what the publishers put on the cover of "Guns & Ammo" should be of no interest to them. I realize that this cover will be mis-used by Obama's enemies but does anyone really think that someone who would be negatively swayed by this cover would have voted for Obama anyway? I don't think so. I blame overly sensitive PC types with no sense of irony or humor for this nonsense. If they had kept their mouths shut, this issue would never have come up in the first place. The left got this ball rolling here and I'm ashamed of my fellow lefties for it.

[aspergris]

7. hooray

Golf clap!!!

and as a fellow Rhode Islander, I salute you.

I miss the surf, the clamcakes, and The Living Room

[aspergris]

6. I think it's more the

"perpetually outraged" here who have a problem with this.

I have a subscription to The New Yorker. This is par for the course for them