Satire has to have an element of truth to it, I told a friend a couple of days ago in my argument with people over why the New Yorker magazine cover did not work as satire.
I found this piece at Huffingtonpost.com talking about the same subject and using a political cartoon trying to puncture some of the magazine’s editors’ arguments for using the cover. But I believe the HuffPo writer messed up a little. Only a little.
He failed to mention that Cindy McCain was indeed addicted to prescription drugs that she stole from an organization that she headed; Maverick, good ol’ Johnny Mac, is actually very, very old (I hear he’s going to be 150 years old on Inauguration Day); and he so did sing that song before an audience.
What I don’t know is whether Mr. Clean hearts Dick Cheney the way B. Hussein O. allegedly adores Osama.
In contrast to the Horsley cartoon, which is a veritable documentary of the lives of the McCains, there’s no piece of information in the New Yorker cartoon that you could point to as being true about either of the Obamas.
So, the New Yorker disseminated the worst of right-wing smears that bear no relationship to the truth about the Obamas.
Finally, Horsley’s cartoon is not likely to get either of the McCains killed. The New Yorker’s cover is an invitation for some deranged patriot to go out and try to kill the Obamas.
That is the only word that comes to my mind regarding the New Yorker magazine cover drawing of Sen. Barack Obama dapping his wife as an American flag burns in the fireplace in a White House with Osama bin Laden’s picture up on the mantelpiece.
I don’t know how the New Yorker could have, whatever they were thinking, done this.
You cannot call this satire because, in my thinking, there has to be some element of truth for satire to work. What is the truth in that cover illustration? It is a distortion, an attack, unexpected one at that from an unexpected source.
Just because Fox News, power-hungry Republicans and right wing crazies think this is not reason to do their dirty work for them. What the New Yorker did is do the dirty work for the nuts and Obama enemies. It renders in living color their fondest dreams of Obama.
Some people have said that the magazine’s audience is very sophisticated and can process this image and see it for the satire that it is. First of all, sophisticated or not, this audience is not better than the larger population at sifting through distortions. But, the greater damage is that a broader audience than the magazine’s readership will see this image.
Please, just watch how many times Fox News throws up that image.
What Republicans and their coalliton of 527’s make hay with this image.
This image creates another problem for the Sen. Obama’s campaign: every second that they spend trying dispel the noxious fumes from this is precious taken away from making a case for the senator’s candidacy.
What good is the mainstream media? First, the media establishment refuses to be honest brokers in this election. Now, they are generating the filth and introducing more pollution into the political environment.
The insidiousness of this image is that it makes it harder to convince the good people of Findlay, Ohio, for instance, who have goodwill toward Obama but are having a hard time getting past all the garbage that’s been thrown at them. Here it is, more kindling. From the New Yorker no less.