31 Comments

1. David Thomson:

The New Yorker is setting up something of straw man. I am unaware of any center-right thinker who believes Barack “Barry” Obama is a secret Muslim. That’s right, not even one! I do consider his wife to be far left of center. Still, I am convinced Michelle Obama’s radicalism is of the nonviolent variety. Who are these conservatives who supposedly hold these peculiar notions concerning the Obama family? How many are there?

Jul 13, 2008 - 10:33 pm 2. Jay:

“Who are these conservatives who supposedly hold these peculiar notions concerning the Obama family?”

David Hazony and Daniel Pipes haven’t come out and said so, of course, but they’ve been big on innuendo.

(http://tinyurl.com/4dptzb)

Pipes is trash, having argued that Salman Rushdie “knew what he was doing” (leave aside the fact that when Jimmy Carter said same, conservatives rightly cried foul). And Hazony? Don’t know how much heft he has.

Overall, don’t think the unaffiliated 527s and direct mailers will not go to town with these rumors. They will. I knew the New Yorker cover was satire, but I was viscerally disgusted by it. If I wanted shock shlock, I’d read Mad Magazine.

Glad I let my subscription lapse on Remnick’s overhyped cocktail party manual.

Jul 13, 2008 - 11:04 pm 3. chuck:

Ah, the New Yorker staff had a great dream last night and haven’t fully awakened. They are stuck in that in between place, half magic and half reality.

Jul 13, 2008 - 11:17 pm 4. Jay:

By the way, Pipes is unneccessarily hard on Rushdie in his book, “The Rushdei Affair.”

http://tinyurl.com/5js6j5

And your comment, Roger, that the cover has been “disowned” by Obama is backhanded in the extreme. It implies the candidate had something to do with it in the first place.

I would add, in parting, that the Obama-as-Muslim smear arguably started in 2004, with a right-wing anti-semite whose vile little idea initally targeted the Jewish community, then spread throughout the country.

http://tinyurl.com/2oqc36

Jul 13, 2008 - 11:19 pm 5. ET:

What seems to be lost in all this brouhaha is the fact that Barry Blitt is an absolutely brilliant illustrator: his stuff is consistently superb. And this one, I am delighted to say, takes the proverbial cake.

The image is satiric, corrosive, sacred cow impaling. But beautifully drawn. Totally in the contemporary illustration zeitgeist.

All these “disowners” should get a life. The image is positively brilliant.

I laughed myself silly.

Jul 13, 2008 - 11:55 pm 6. New Yorker Obama Terrorist Cover | Outside The Beltway | OTB:

[...] Girl, Red State, Polimom Says, Macsmind, Gateway Pundit, Riehl World View, The Plank, The Page, Roger L. Simon, Althouse, JammieWearingFool, Doug Ross, The Strata-Sphere, The Volokh Conspiracy, Moonbattery, The [...]

Jul 14, 2008 - 4:18 am 7. Furor Swirls Around Liberal New Yorker's Caricature Obama Cover:

[...] –Pajamas Media’s Roger Simon: You’d think The New Yorker - of all places - would be savvy about subtext, not to mention all the deconstructed and psychoanalyzed subconscious and semi-conscious wishes inherent in “authorial choice” or whatever they called it at the Sorbonne and Yale circa 1983. But no! The cover above is appearing on the magazine this week, putatively as a warning that those meanies on the right are about to smear the Obamas as the second coming of Angela Davis and Ayman al-Zawahiri. But how could that be? In truth Michelle and Barack are nowhere near as interesting as Angela and Ayman - or as imaginative (in a negative sense, anyway). And to make matters quickly worse, the cover itself has already been disowned by the candidate. [...]

Jul 14, 2008 - 6:51 am 8. Lem:

If the shoe fits

Jul 14, 2008 - 7:21 am 9. ricpic:

Clearly the work of bitter Hillary lesbians at The New Yorker, God bless ‘em.

Jul 14, 2008 - 7:44 am 10. Lightnin' Hopkins:

They’re just showing everyone what to expect from the “Right-Wing Noise Machine” come the fall, right? You just have to laugh at the tired “Swiftboating” meme (as it is plied and understood by Democrats). I seem to recall HRC & friends making the “Obama might be a Muslim” inference, and how he might be, you know, *assassinated* or something like that. All is forgiven!

It’s always instructive to see the Left reveal themselves: “Digital Brownshirts,” anyone? How about, “American soldiers [are] going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night and terrorizing kids and children…” Yes, but it’s those dastardly 527’s we have to look out for — the New Yorker is merely holding up a mirror into the soul of the average “wingnut.”

Longest. Election. Year. Ever.

Jul 14, 2008 - 7:47 am 11. Captain Hate:

God knows Bush, Rice, nor Clarence Thomas have never been portrayed as disrespectfully as Oblammo and his recently silent wife. I expect nothing less than a strongly worded resolution against this obvious hate crime.

Jul 14, 2008 - 8:42 am 12. Sgt. Mom:

I love the smell of impaled sacred cows in the morning!

Seriously, considering how other sitting presidents and candidates have been lampooned, this is comparitively mild. That the Obaminator is so thin of skin that he can’t brush this off with a chuckle and an off-hand quip is rather telling.

Jul 14, 2008 - 11:09 am 13. Lem:

Clearly, what we have here is an Islamic disagreement over the proper portrayal of a deity.

Thou shall not caricature thy lord Obama

If Obama wins I’m moving to Denmark

Jul 14, 2008 - 11:20 am 14. Charlie (Colorado):

Who has the popcorn, and how long before the HuffPo or Kos calls the New Yorker a “right wing magazine”?

Jul 14, 2008 - 12:07 pm 15. Kevin Peters:

The meme is “right wing attack machine” and if mainstream Republican groups and individuals won’t provide the evidence for the left to get self rightous about the New Yorker will produce what they “know’ is in the hearts of these scoundrels so they can write their pre determined stories anyway. Forget that it was Sen. Clinton’s campaign that introduced the Obama in native gown picture and many of the other hardball political atttacks that have gone after Sen. Obama. And the playing of the Soprano’s theme song against the Washington Italian American candidate is not racist “attack machine” methods because it is a Republican that is the target. Both sides of the aisle hit below the belt in most campaigns.Remember the “daisy” commercial against Goldwater. The problem for Sen. McCain is that no matter how much he tries to stay clean in his campaign he will still get tagged with the dirty republicans, noble democrats cliche from the MSM.

Jul 14, 2008 - 12:24 pm 16. David Thomson:

“David Hazony and Daniel Pipes haven’t come out and said so, of course, but they’ve been big on innuendo.”

A number of scholars suspect that B. Obama was a practicing Muslim earlier in his life. If so, hardcore militants would perceive him to be an apostate. That’s the beginning and end of it. Nobody seriously contends that Obama is presently a secret Muslim. As matter of fact, I am convinced that he is a secular man who takes religion with a huge grain of salt.

Jul 14, 2008 - 12:46 pm 17. Barbara Skolaut:

I’ve got the popcorn concession, Charlie.

I’ll double my order again.

Jul 14, 2008 - 12:46 pm 18. ray_g:

Yes, if anyone should be offended it should be those who decline to vote for Mr. Barack. The clear implication is that the only reason you would not vote for him is that you are a bigot who sees him and his wife this way. This “right wing attack machine” theme of the Left is really getting annoying. I don’t recall how many times I heard some Clinton supporter say something to the effect that “Mr. Barack is a weak candidate because the ‘right wing attack machine’ will take about him and run with it.” Which is a strange argument at best.

Jul 14, 2008 - 4:24 pm 19. ray_g:

Meant to write “take (issue X) about him and run with it.”

Jul 14, 2008 - 4:26 pm 20. Terrye:

It is supposed to be satire, but sometimes there is truth in satire and the image will remain with people. Tacky and stupid.

I wondered if it might have something to do with a Hillary comeback at the convention.

Jul 14, 2008 - 5:00 pm 21. The Daily Brief: Military Musings and Thoughts Less Filtered » Memo: Touchy, Humorless and Arrogant is No Way to Go Through Life, Son:

[...] will catch up to him someday and he will actually make an accurate prediction. So here they go, making a huge splash with a cover that has managed to become the blogosphere’s “S**tstorm of The Day” by skewering [...]

Jul 14, 2008 - 5:00 pm 22. Jay:

But David, by keeping that rumor about Obama’s past alive, the likes of Pipes and Hazony only stoke fears in people that Obama is lying about his Christianity, using it as some sort of Islamic front.

That’s the problem.

Jul 14, 2008 - 8:10 pm 23. chuck:

Pipes and Hazony only stoke fears in people that Obama is lying about his Christianity

G*d know the people are stupid and shouldn’t be told too much lest they get ideas. Most progressive governments understand that and won’t put up with outdated bourgeois concepts like “We the people”.

Jul 14, 2008 - 8:52 pm 24. punditius:

Well, evidently Obama spent time as a child in a Muslim environment, & I’ll bet that regardless of any religious belief, there’s some Muslem in him. It’s no different than being raised Catholic - some stuff stays with you no matter what you might come to believe as an adult.

Personally, I don’t believe that Obama’s a Christian either, other than as a matter of convenience. I think that like so much else in his life, he made a calculated decision to take a step that he knew would advance him politically. If he’d moved to Israel rather than to the south side of Chicago, he’d be a Jew today.

As for the cover, I think it’s brilliant. Remember the one with Bush & Kerry, both in uniform, where Bush is leaning on the podium with a wise guy look, jerking his thumb at Kerry, & Kerry has this ramrod prissy look? That cover caught a certain aspect of their personalities.

Well, I think that the Obama cover does the same sort of thing. Obama may not be a Muslim, but he’s a third worlder & that’s a lot of his appeal to the left. Michelle may not be a Black Panther, but she’s a fellow traveler with them. They might not burn the American flag, but the flag probably has little meaning to either of them.

And the fist bump is perfect. They are both too cool to shake hands, y’know. That would be so…white.

Jul 14, 2008 - 9:24 pm 25. newton:

I don’t give a rat if Obama is Muslim, Christian, atheist, animist, or whatever.

He’s a Marxist. That’s reason enough not to vote for him.

Jul 14, 2008 - 9:25 pm 26. Gary Rosen:

Once the late Steve Allen was guest hosting for Johnny Carson and he had on a guy who was purportedly from the “Polish Anti-Defamation League” or something like that. The guy was complaining about Polish jokes and to illustrate he told just about every Polish joke in the book.

I think that is what is going on here except it is not a comedy routine, it is real life. We are so used to the idea that the New Yorker is the ultimate in sophistication that we can’t quite wrap our heads around the fact that they really are that stupid. They really thought they were helping Obama by mocking the illusory “right wing attack mahcine” when they have only helped to publicize this image. You can just see the McCain campaign saying “we are shocked by this disgraceful cover” while trying to suppress laughter and then high-fiving.

Jul 15, 2008 - 12:37 am 27. Gary Rosen:

“the Obama-as-Muslim smear arguably started in 2004, with a right-wing anti-semite”

That’s OK, Jay, Obama had plenty of left-wing anti-semites posting on his site until he got caught by Little Green Footballs.

Jul 15, 2008 - 12:38 am 28. Terrye:

Thus far most {if not all} of the “attacks” against Obama for being black or Muslim or whatever have not come from the right at all. They have come from the left. They are obsessed.

Jul 15, 2008 - 4:17 am 29. Captain Hate:

All this incident has done thus far is point out what humorless gasbags Obummer and his handlers are. John Kerry with funny ears.

Jul 15, 2008 - 7:25 am 30. Roderick Reilly:

I agree with the “strawman” analogy. Only real fringies actually see the Obamas this way. The real Obama is a fraud, and his wife is an overbearing twit. Much harder to illustrate that.

I do snicker at the ignorant outrage over the cover, though. Satire always has a way of bringing out the ignorant and the neurotic like ants at a picnic.

Jul 15, 2008 - 1:32 pm 31. narciso:

As I recall, one of Pipe’s beef aboutRushdie,
is that he held a withering contempt for the Western institutions (MI-5, Scotland Yard)
and leaders. like (Thatcher, Reagan) who he caricatured as dictators, yet had to seek refuge with them; when many of his seeming
likely allies like John Le Carre, abandoned him. Ironically, the are some the same attitudes that Obama has cultivated or been influenced with over a twenty year period.

Jul 16, 2008 - 10:20 am

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