What newspapers are saying about the New Yorker's Obama cover
|
Political joke backfired Funny thing about a joke. When you have to explain it, that is proof the joke didn't work. ... A picture is worth a thousand words, and in this case the picture of the first serious black contender for president of the United States as a Muslim fuels scurrilous rumors that prey on gullible voters. Just because he is black does not mean that Barack Obama should not be the object of satire, fair comment and even jabs of unfair comment. That's the nature of U.S. politics. Sen. Obama became fair game as soon as he entered politics. ... The New Yorker's editors may feel that their readers are sophisticated enough to get the joke. That says more about them than it does about either Obama or the wider culture. When nobody laughs and you have to explain the joke, the joke's on you. — Miami Herald editorial Come on, laugh Remember, political humor is always going to offend somebody. The skits on Saturday Night Live that pounded Sen. Hillary Clinton were a hoot — if you were an Obamaniac. The lampooning of John McCain by the likes of Jon Stewart? Hilarious, unless you're a loyal GOPer. The best political humor points people in the direction of the truth. Are you listening, Baracknophobes? — Chicago Tribune editorial Fist-bump fury A fresh round of campaign offend-o-rama has been triggered by a New Yorker magazine cover that mocks right-wing slanders of Barack and Michelle Obama. The couple, he in Muslim garb, she in camo with automatic weapon, stand in the Oval Office knuckle-bumping under a portrait of Osama bin Laden and in front of a flag-burning fireplace. A host of commentators has decried Barry Blitt's cartoon as offensive, and Obama and John McCain have denounced it. The flap stands out because the decriers (mostly liberals) aren't decrying on their own behalf but on behalf of the less insightful. They get the joke, they say, but worry that others won't and that the cartoon will reinforce the lies it seeks to mock. Perhaps they, candidate included, should relax and allow themselves a laugh at their enemies' expense. They could also show a little more faith in the public's sophistication. People seem to understand, for instance, that Stephen Colbert is not really a right-wing talk-show host. Those who miss that distinction, or who read Blitt's cartoon as a blast at Barack, are unlikely Obama voters in the first place — Boston Globe editorial Insults and issues It's interesting that this controversy should have arisen in what's a kind of golden age for televised political satire. Still, in an interview with The New York Times, Comedy Central's Jon Stewart said that jokes involving Barack Obama often seem to fall flat with his audience. "People have a tendency to react as far as their ideology allows them," he said. Maybe it's not just political correctness but our division into blinkered red and blue camps that's drained humor's salutary bite from our politics. ... Moreover, for all their practiced outrage, neither political camp really objects to this sort of controversy. Every news cycle dominated by what are essentially ephemera is another 24 hours in which Obama and John McCain have been spared questions about real issues. Insults are so much easier to deal with than issues. — Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times
|
|
|
