http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/us/politics/15humor.htmlMr. Colbert said in a telephone interview that a running joke on his show has been that Mr. Obama is a “secret Muslim”; the New Yorker cover, he said, was consistent with that. “It’s a completely valid satirical point to make — and it’s perfectly valid for Obama not to like it,” he said.
Mr. Colbert said he had been freer to poke fun at Mr. Obama than other late-night hosts because “my character on the show doesn’t like him. I’m expected to be hostile to him.”
Mr. Stewart, who is also an executive producer of “The Colbert Report,” said the Obama campaign’s reaction to the New Yorker cover seemed part of what is now almost a pro forma cycle in political campaigns. “Nothing can occur without the candidate responding,” he said.
Bill Maher, who is host of a politically oriented late-night show on HBO, said, “If you can’t do irony on the cover of The New Yorker, where can you do it?”
Those comments are from page 2 of a more general article about the difficulty comedians have coming up with jokes about Obama. I'm quoting those rather than the start of the article because there have been so many threads here about the New Yorker cover.
Threads I haven't commented on because (1) the cover is obviously satire, (2) it's clumsy enough satire there was bound to be outrage over it, and (3) the backlash against that image, and the discussion of what's wrong with the cover, are almost certainly helping Obama more than hurting him. After all, anyone foolish enough to take the cover seriously or like it as an attack on him isn't going to vote for him anyway. It is not going to turn any of the independent/moderate voters he needs against him.
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