Accidental Blogger

A couple of days ago a friend forwarded me an email that she received from a friend of hers. No, this was not a "from a friend to a friend to a friend" type of chain letter originating at an obscure source. The message came from a "real" man with a name whom my friend knows. The writer of the email is a Democrat to boot. But he makes it clear that he is not going to vote for Barack Obama in November for several "in his own words" (without the full context, of course) reasons he lists after painstakingly scouring through the two books that Obama has authored. The fact that a Democrat can harbor so many suspicions about Obama’s character and intent, (see the e-mail below the fold) made me wonder what the other side is thinking.

That brings me to the cover of the recent issue of the New Yorker (see left) the analysis of whose possible impact on the upcoming presidential race has been all over the mainstream media and blogs for the last 48 hours. In fact my friend forwarded me the e-mail of the disgruntled Dem after the New Yorker cover story broke. My own take on the cartoon is mixed. While I feel that a magazine has the right to publish whatever they wish, good satire takes a grain of truth and exaggerates it and usually makes it quite clear where it is going with the humor and irony. In the case of the "no comment necessary" style of the New Yorker cartoon, for those select few who are familiar with its brand of humor it will be sufficiently clear that the cartoonist intended to lampoon those who slander Obama (and his wife) with whispers about his "un-American, unpatriotic" values and insinuate that he might be Manchurian Muslim Candidate out to destroy a Christian nation from within. But without a proper context (say, McCain fantasizing about vilifying the Obamas) it may not be clear to a casual observer whether the cover picture is satire or an affirmation of the now infamous "terrorist fist jab" between Mr. and Mrs. Obama, an expression coined by Fox News after Obama won the Democratic Party’s nomination. I asked my co-bloggers what they thought of the New Yorker cover art and heard back from three of them:

Anna: The thinking may be that what it means to be a New Yorker is that we’re all so hip, we can make fun of racists by making tongue in cheek use of their stereotypes. Given that the imagery of Michelle Obama as an angry black radical and Barack Obama as in cahoots with Muslim fundamentalists is pretty main-stream on the right, however, it seems ill-advised, to say the least.

Joe: I know that Fox News referred to the famous fist bump incident as "a terrorist fist jab." [H]opefully part of the intent was to make fun of that.

Sujatha: Surprisingly (or perhaps not), the article inside the New Yorker bears zero relation to the cover. Maybe they should have gone with the cartoon that depicts Obama as a wolf in sheep’s clothing rather than Osama-lite/blaxpoitation Michelle. This is an editorial decision that smacks not of poor judgement but is suspiciously sensationalist.

While many  have defended the New Yorker cover artist Barry Blitt, others including some cartoonists, found the art work failing as satire. One popular political commentator called it gutless.

Ann Telnaes, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist, defended the magazine cover against critics who say it is offensive.

The cover, Telnaes wrote in an email, “was meant to be satirical and comment on the ludicrous rumors which have been going around the Internet and repeated endlessly on cable news.” According to Telnaes, the campaign operatives and pundits who have attacked the cartoon have been misreading the image.

Nick Anderson, who also won a Pulitzer for his cartooning and serves as president of the American Association of Editorial cartoonists, agreed with Telnaes that the cartoon was intended as satire. But he also had some sharp words for the New Yorker cartoonist.

“I think, as a piece of satire, it utterly fails,” Anderson told Politico. “The artist and the New Yorker editor [David Remnick] have claimed that it is so over the top that it is clearly absurd. But it’s not sufficiently over the top. It is merely depicting what the whisper campaigns have been suggesting.”

Anderson added that the cover might have been more effective if it had included the title of the cartoon, “The Politics of Fear,” on the front of the magazine.

“It would have been even stronger had they shown an enemy of Obama painting the picture, or imagining it in their head,” he said.

Stephen Hess, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who co-authored Drawn and Quartered: The History of American Political Cartoons, also said that it would have been helpful for readers to have the title of the cartoon as context.

The Obama campaign (as also that of Sen McCain) condemned the cartoon as tasteless and offensive.  Senator Obama himself was more restrained in his assessment.

Now for the email that my friend forwarded to me which illustrates why many Democrats are concerned that the New Yorker’s attempt at humor may have unwittingly added fuel to fire.

Don’t believe the rhetoric that Obama expounds during his presidential campaign. During their campaign, every political candidate says the things they think people want to hear but once they are elected they always revert to their real agenda. The only truth that Obama keeps repeating is "change" and the following makes clear exactly what his real agenda is and what he means by "change!" This man is a threat to our country! I am truly scared! 

Think you know who this man is? This possible President of the United States !! Read Below and ask yourselves, is this REALLY someone we can accept as the President of our great nation!!!!

Below are a few lines from Obama’s books; In his words!

From Dreams of My Father: ‘I ceased to advertise my mother’s race (she was white) at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.’

From Dreams of My Father: ‘I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s race.’

From Dreams of My Father: ‘There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white.’

From Dreams of My Father:  ‘It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.’

From Dreams of My Father: ‘I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn’t speak to my own. It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.’

And FINALLY the Most Damming one of ALL of them!!!

From Audacity of Hope: ‘I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.’

* If you have never forwarded an e-mail, now is the time to do so!!!! We CANNOT have someone with this type of mentality running our GREAT nation!!  I don’t care whether you a Liberal or a Conservative. We CANNOT turn ourselves over to this type of character in a President. PLEASE help spread the word!