| FrontPageMag.com | By Robert Spencer | By Hugh Fitzgerald | Books | Dhimmi Watch | Islam 101 | Qur'an Blog | Raymond Ibrahim | Robert Spencer |  |
|
|
|||||||||||
|
|
Said Obama spokesman Bill Burton: "The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."
One would think he would welcome "a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create." Does Bill Burton think that this is how The New Yorker, of all publications, actually views Obama? That seems beyond the realm of possibility. So the only thing I can think of that explains his dudgeon here over what is nothing more than a funny satirical cartoon is that he is concerned that a good number of Americans actually view Obama this way.
If so, it is a perception the candidate himself has helped create, by -- among other things -- appearing in a photo-op in Muslim garb (which does not make him a secret Muslim, as I explained here). In any case, I wonder if Muslim groups will seize on this "tasteless and offensive" remark and use it to continue their campaign to get Obama to stop behaving as if being accused of being a Muslim is a "smear" -- a campaign which, of course, is part of a larger agenda of consigning to the realms of "bigotry" and "hatred" any realistic examination of the Islamic jihad imperative.
Finally, to see a political cartoon being denounced these days makes me uneasy. There are indeed plenty of political cartoons that are truly tasteless and offensive, but in a world in which Islamic organizations are making concerted efforts to compel Western countries to limit free speech because of a few political cartoons, it would have been much wiser for the Obama camp to have laughed this one off.
"New Yorker mag's 'satire' cover draws Team Obama's ire," by Stephanie Gaskell for the New York Daily News, July 13 (thanks to JCB):
Barack Obama's campaign lashed out Sunday at the editors of The New Yorker magazine for a cartoon cover that depicts the Democratic candidate and his wife as fist-bumping terrorists....The Illinois senator is depicted in traditional Muslim garb in the Barry Blitt illustration set in the Oval Office.
His wife, Michelle, is in fatigues, sporting an Angela Davis-style sky-high Afro, an AK-47 slung over her shoulder.
A portrait of terror kingpin Osama Bin Laden hangs above the fireplace, in which an American flag is set ablaze.
"The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree," Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton said.
New Yorker editor David Remnick seemed shocked by the backlash.
"Our cover ... combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are," he said in a statement.
"The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall - all of them echo one attack or another. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to the absurd. And that's the spirit of this cover," Remnick said....
The McCain campaign joined in piling on The New Yorker. "We completely agree with the Obama campaign that it's tasteless and offensive," said campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds.
"Tasteless and offensive! Braaaak! Polly want a cracker!" Remember the good old days of "A choice, not an echo"?
Posted by Robert at July 14, 2008 3:21 AM
Print this entry
| Email this entry
| Digg this
| del.icio.us
remember this?
http://www.honestreporting.com/images/browncartoon.jpg
what is Obama complaining about?
Posted by: ploome![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 14, 2008 4:39 AM
remember this?
http://www.honestreporting.com/images/browncartoon.jpg
what is Obama complaining about?
Posted by: ploome at July 14, 2008 4:40 AM
Hmmm...I fail to see the distortion. Looks like any other pic of Obambi and wife.
Posted by: Alaskan at July 14, 2008 4:47 AM
What stuns me is that the New Yorker hears ONE (stupid) Fox News babe say "terrorist fist bumping" and decides that Middle America sees the Obama couple in the same way. Amazing. Sometimes people in the big city think of America and conjure up demons.
at July 14, 2008 6:23 AM
What's really a distortion about this cartoon is the way it mocks the entirely legitimate apprehensions the Obamas engender in most Americans through their own words.
People don't perceive Michelle Obama as a Black Panther; they perceive her as snappish, bossy, arrogant and resentful because of her statements about Americans being "mean," "cynical," and having "broken souls" because they live in a country where "folks set the bar, and then you work hard and you reach the bar -- sometimes you surpass the bar -- and then they move the bar!" (That this beastly state of affairs hasn't prevented her from waltzing into a $121,910-a-year job that bestowed upon her a raise to $316,962 in one year is lost upon no one -- except, perhaps, the oh-so-sophisticated editors of the New Yorker.)
And they don't worry about Obama putting up a poster of Bin Laden in the Oval Office, they worry about him using the power of that office to tax them into penury and compromise their most fundamental rights, including the right to free expression. Listen to his speeches as he declares that "hate crimes against Hispanic people doubled last year" because a "certain segment has basically been feeding a kind of xenophobia" and "Rush Limbaugh and Lou Dobbs" have been "ginning things up." It is quite clear that Obama views "ginning things up" through criticism of a self-designated victim group as tantamount to inciting hate crimes, and therefore esentially a hate crime in its own right. Accordingly, what might his response be to the demands of Secretary General of the Organization of the Islamic Conference Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and U.N. Special Rapporteur "on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related forms of intolerance" Doudou Dične for laws against the "scourge" of "Islamophobia," intended to silence those of us who have the temerity to resist the encroachment of Islamic supremacism through exposure, analysis, criticism and raillery?
Posted by: Papa Whiskey at July 14, 2008 6:47 AM
As Obama is a Christian, presumably we can expect rioting, burning of cars, shooting and looting, by churchgoers this Sunday, in response to the cartoon.
Posted by: zoltix at July 14, 2008 6:52 AM
Does anyone know if the New Yorker staff are Clinton diehards?
Many Clinton supporters believe that there is still time for Hillary to get the nomination , this could be part of scorched earth tactics.
at July 14, 2008 7:02 AM
Great cartoon!
I agree with Mr. Spencer, the most worrisome thing is the reaction. Are we in the West going to start responding to cartoons with outrage now? Free speech is dying a slow death in North America, it seems.
Posted by: ImNoDhimmi at July 14, 2008 7:19 AM
That $195,000 "raise" just happened to occur after Barack was elected to the Senate, but of course that's just a coincidence.
Tasteless and offensive?
So what? Isn't that the type of speech liberals constantly tell us the First Amendment is meant to protect? How many offensive caricatures have we seen of George W. Bush in the last five years?
Me thinks the Obamas doth protest too much. Their, and even McCain's, reaction can be attributed to inexperience. They have never known real opposition. Welcome to the big leagues, guys. This is nothing, compared to what you'll experience once you're residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Are you ready for the brushbacks and the knockdowns? It sure doesn't look like it.
Posted by: PMK at July 14, 2008 7:35 AM
It would be silly for Barack Obama, and his advisers, not to recogniize that there are many people in this country who are anxious about his Muslim background, his Muslim name, his Muslim supporters getting out the vote for someone whom, they, at least, in this country, and abroad, are convinced is deeply sympathetic to Islam and to its aims. This does not go away by declaring oneself a Christian. And it does not go away after the election, whether Obama wins - in which case the anxiety only increases -- or if he loses, and plans to run four years from now.
It is humanly underststandable. How strange it is for most of us to think of a President Barack Obama after Wasington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln, and others of that ilk. The fact that Obama is mentally superior to Bush, and morally superior to Clinton, cuts little ice among those who, like the King in "Now We Are Six" who did "want a little butter for his bread," would in these disturbing (or "great" kraussian times) want just a little cultural continuiity, even in the names of our presidents. We don't like such sudden shifting, even nymic shifting, under our feet.
How strange it is to think of someone whose views on Islam we do not clearly know, but have a right to suspect are not clear to him, that he has not done enough studying or thinking or consulting not with the usual esposito-armstrong-rashidi apologists (that is, the venal, the stupid, and the islamochristian Arab propagandist), has no idea about the scandal of MESA Nostra (which google, and consult for detail Martin Kramer's analysis of the teaching about Islam and the Middle East in this country) but begun with, say, "The Dhimmi" and "Islam and Dhimmitude" and then for text, the books -- pay no attention to the "conservative" publishing house and stick unswervingly to the contents, and it would be wonderful if Obama could start looking at websites conducted by former Muslims, who are so knowledgeable, helpful and impassioned in a way that inspires.
His remarks, or almost asides, about Islam, are clouded by sentimentality and childhood memories: sentimentality about an absent father (and the search for "roots" and for "identity," by now a banal theme, but one that was all Barack Obama had to work with when, at a little over thirty, he decided My Life So Far is worth a book). He learned a little more, or thinks he did, in that most unrepresentative of Muslim countries (compare to Iran or Saudi Arabia or Pakistan), more easygoing and not-entirely-Muslim Indonesia, with its Hindus in Bali, its Christians in the Moluccas, and still the afterglow of the post-Dutch nationalist leaders who really were secular, such as Suharto and Sukarno, or were sui generis, as is the truly Muslim "moderate" Wahid (who had been greatly affected by his time as a student in Baghdad, when he befriended, and was befriended by, an Iraqi Jew working in the same office, one of the very last Jews in Iraq, and someone who apparently made a deep impression on Wahid for the better). Until he has spent a few days on the Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira, and applied his mind – he has a good mind, but the wrong instincts about the world – and has at least consulted, in person or on paper, the most piercing commentators on Islam (both non-Muslims, and defectors from the Army of Islam now living in this country, such as Ibn Warraq, Wafa Sultan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali) he should remain silent.
For so far those who read the tea-leaves have good reason to worry about his understanding. Yes, he is against the war in Iraq, and claims, not quite accurately I’m afraid, that he has been so steadily (no, once the war began he wavered, and after he was against it he was for it and then he was against it again). But that is not enough. We need to know why he was against it. Was it because we merely anger Muslims, and we must do nothing to do that, but instead come to some conceivable accommodation with them, one largely based on throwing others – i.e., Israel and possibly the Christians of the Middle East – to the wolves, forcing them to give up their legal, moral, historic rights, whatever those rights might be (we hardly hear about those rights; all we hear about is strangely-neutral “processing” as in “peace-processing,” as if the “process” itself will lead with certainty to a “solution” – which again implies that there is a discrete “problem” to which there is a “solution,” a most naďve, and some might cruelly suggest naively American, notion).
He thinks that every enemy can be “talked to” and “without preconditions” and that the mere fact of this talk is a Good Thing. No. Sometimes such talk legitimizes a regime on its uppers, sometimes such talk allows a regime that has been engaged in tactics of delay, delay, delay --- see the regime in Khartoum, hoping always to get in another good month or six of mass-murder, before it happens to call it a day; see the regime in Teheran, that hopes to buy time to finish the “project” about which we all know, and if it is engaged in “talks” the American government is unlikely, so those who rule the Islamic Republic of Iran correctly conclude, to do what it must, and should have done six months or a year ago, and now seems to be both waiting to see if permanently imperiled, and brave little Israel will take on the difficult task (one that would be so much easier for the Americans with their vast airpower and spy satellites and other resources) for the Infidels of this world, as it has before, and at the same time, trying to pressure Israel not to do so, for supposed fear of the “headache” this would cause American military planners, their “hands full,” in the Middle East. So Israel has to risk being decapitated, because Admiral Mullen and others, having been bogged down in Tarbaby Iraq through the sole folly of the American government, might suffer a “headache.” But Obama doesn’t talk about any of that, as he might – and score all kinds of unanswerable points. No, instead he talks about “talks.”
He chose, early on, the egregious and execrable Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s man – does Obama wish to be associated with Jimmy Carter in any way? – who helped Carter abandon the Shah (oh, Gary Sick played his little role as an “Iran expert”), though I doubt that Brzezinski had a hand in composing Carter’s treacly letter to the Ayatollah Khomeini who was addressed by Carter “as a fellow man of faith.” And Brzezinski, with Carter, was the chief bullier of Begin and the rest of the Israeli delegation at Camp David, for Brzezinski, to put it mildly, has always been noticeably unsympathetic to Israel. And what is most striking about Brzezinski is that in all his decades out of power, with the usual money-making and careful promotion of his children (Mika, indistinguishable from a thousand others, having risen high, thanks you for your efforts on her behalf), and in the last six years – what’s he had to do all day, save to attend, a few times a year, a few board meetings – has apparently not felt it his duty to learn a thing about Islam. But he pontificates away, and someone – perhaps Obama himself – decided that Brzezinski was the man to go to. That worries.
And then there is Samantha Powers, possibly just back from her honeymoon. Her entire career has been owed to her “work” on genocide; the Sudan made her. Yet there is no indication that Samantha Power, any more than her fellow traveler or fellow-dabbler in the miseries of the Sudan, Nicholas Kristof (whose career was similarly helped so mightily by his own dispatches from Sudan, or from Darfur – dispatches that merely reported, that never explained or made sense of things for readers), understands that the Sudan has been an exhibit, over the past two decades, of two kinds of Muslim Arab malevolence and aggression: toward the Christians and animists of the south, it has been a classic Jihad, designed to continue the push southward by the forces of Islam that has been going on, slowly at first, over the past century, in the Sudan. The result has been about 2 million murdered, or starved to death. And in Darfur, which for some reason was of much greater attention to the kristofs and the powerses that be, exhibits not classic Jihad against the Infidel, but rather the Arab supremacism of which Islam has always been the vehicle. Samantha Powers, a detail girl about some things – her last book was an unreadable 642 pages on the life and death, vita morte miracoli, of Vieira da Silva, when if she had possessed the gift of summary, and the esemplastic or shaping faculty, she might have produced something one-quarter the size and forty times as good. There is no hint that in all her cellphone calls to Obams she, Samantha Powers, has ever shown that in Darfur, as in the southern Sudan, the same impulses, from the same texts and tenets, are at work as in the 9/11/2001 bombing, or in the beating to death of a Hindu passing Muslims coming out of Friday Prayers in Bangladesh, or the “Jihad” (Col. Ojukwu’s own words) against the Christians in Nigeria during the Biafra War, or the decapitation of Christian schoolgirls by Muslims in Indonesia. Connecting the dots can only take place if you first recognize the dots have to be connected, and that can only come after having familiarized yourself with the texts, tenets, attitudes of Islam. This Samantha Powers – is the honeymoon over yet, and did anyone think to kiss the Blarney Stone? – shows no signs of having been done. And if Cass Sunstein, whom she just married, remains an adviser to Obama, who in his right mind does not think there will be a place for Samantha Powers, as an “expert” on foreign policy? Oh, she’s done very well for herself, but now she may possibly feel obliged to save even a single life in the Sudan. And that can only be done with an American military intervention, one requiring not much by way of soldiers, but simply the overnight destruction of the Sudanese airforce, and seizure of Darfur and the southern Sudan, until such time as a referendum on independence can be held. Happy black faces, grateful for being rescued, and the sinister looks of the members of the Arab League, cursing the way they will now have been foiled in their efforts to Islamize and arabize not only all of the Sudan (with its oil wealth in the south, and mineral wealth in Darfur), but also to proceed further, to islamize – through demography – Ethiopia, and the rest of East Africa through Da’wa, aided by what would be seen, so the Arabs thought, to be the inexorable march of Islam down the coast.
One could go on, in a leisurely prosopographical way, holding up for inspection now this “foreign policy adviser” and now that, but this, for now, will have to do.
At least Obama should understand why people are made nervous, and why he has to say, and then do, very dramatic things to show not only that he is not a Muslim, but that he truly – unlike Bush, and unlike McCain up to now – has studied, and grasps, the meaning, and menace, of Islam.
For if he doesn’t, and if he does nonetheless manage to become President, those who do know all about Islam will make mincemeat of him, and all kinds of things that should be done, especially on the question of climate change, which requires the widest possible political support, support that be achieved only by sensibly harnessing both those who are most interested in reducing the use of fossil fuels because of anthropogenic climate change or climate turbulence, and those who are most interested in reducing the use of fossil fuels because of the desire to deprive those conducting Jihad of the Money Weapon, so much more effective, at this point, than terrorism in promoting the goal of removing all obstacles to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam.
at July 14, 2008 7:40 AM
Let's hope that the New Yorker cartoonist does not receive death threats...................
Posted by: tanstaafl at July 14, 2008 8:06 AM
Interesting off-the-cuff comment on FNC this morning. Some here might be interested.
Posted by: Always On Watch at July 14, 2008 8:08 AM
If Obama is a Muslim, he is a "nice" Muslim. Not to worry. (His wife...not so nice.)
Posted by: Spot on at July 14, 2008 8:10 AM
"post-Dutch nationalist leaders who really were secular, such as Suharto and Sukarno"
-by Hugh
Sukarno is all but forgotten and Suharto's legacy, deserved or not, is one of dictatorship and cronyism. The Left has vilified him. It has also criticized any and all American support of him. It's not likely Obama would look favorably upon Suharto. What would his mother think?
Posted by: PMK at July 14, 2008 8:13 AM
Ah yes, and then there was the time that your poster was expunged from Jihadwatch for being critical of Barry Hussein, the New Messiah.
Yes, the very proponents of free speech and 'not politically correctedness' removed my posts which were satire on the Obamaster.
Well, better late than too late - like after the next election.
Posted by: dgene at July 14, 2008 8:39 AM
She doesn't need an AK-47. That voice can kill at 100 yards. God Save America, indeed.
Posted by: Brett_McS at July 14, 2008 8:44 AM
And one more thing:
Hugh: the current romance with 'climate change' is a hoax.
There has always been climate change.
Read the Bible.
Posted by: dgene at July 14, 2008 8:47 AM
This whole thing smacks of desperation, and it could backfire heavily.
http://farleftwatch.wordpress.com
at July 14, 2008 8:50 AM
Poor little Barry.
This clown has shown over and over that he can dish it out, but he sure can't take it.
Thin skinned, like many hyper-sensitive Muslims who have demonstrated no tolerance for criticism.
Barry's brother is an Islamist from what I hear.
Here's a site that provides alot of information about this joker, Obama.
at July 14, 2008 8:58 AM
Bingo, I suppose you prefer [stupid] "newsbabes at NBC CBS and Al-Jazeera? Real "babes" like Keith Olbermann..?
And Katie K?
So whom are YOU calling "stupid"?
Posted by: Ummah Gummah at July 14, 2008 9:05 AM
Papa Whiskey, you summed it up!
Posted by: Ummah Gummah at July 14, 2008 9:09 AM
I read about this on a political site yesterday, 347 comments. Many outright racist, many leftist loonies. Unfortunately the maniacs are numerous and influence the vote.
Muslims are urging other muslims and kufirs alike to vote for Obama. His win would cause dancing in the muslim streets. Apparently numbers of voting muslims see Barack as a muslim, He's at least good enough for government work.
This idea on the part of some muslims may backfire on Obama if he ever has to make strong moves against them. Obama riots by muslims, who got their feelings hurt because he failed to follow Shariah.
Somehow, Bush has managed to escape that. I don't know that the Bush method will work for Obama.
Everyone who wants America to yield, wants Obama.
When he is forced into not yielding, they will hate him. I think the honeymoon will last about six months, then disenchantment will set in. In a year, those who voted him in, will be looking for ways to get him out...
at July 14, 2008 9:20 AM
I'm confused. I thought "tasteless and offensive" were two of the many criteria for a successful political cartoon.
Is there an article that goes with the cover? I don't know how the New Yorker works, but in most magazines there is at least a blurb, if not a full article within that relates to the cover illustration.
Things are not always what they seem, and the article might well be a lampoon of the cover lampoon. I doubt we'll find out about that, unless we purchase the magazine.
To mitigate against this perceived outrage flies in the face of the journalistic opacity which has become the norm in the US.
As political cartoons go, this one is a keeper, and should be offered to the public as a poster.
Posted by: Abscedere at July 14, 2008 9:21 AM
tasteless and offensive, oh my!
I've seen dozens of far more offensive cartoons about Bush; and in years past, about Reagan and Nixon.
And who can forget, if one was around then, the infamous TV ad for LBJ in 1964: the one with the little girl in her summer dress skipping through a meadow, picking wildflowers, and then suddenly a blast of light and a mushroom cloud? The meaning, for those who weren't around then: Goldwater would start a nuclear war, while LBJ was the voice of reason and negotiation. The same LBJ who, after election, ramped up the troop level in Vietnam by a factor of ten.
No, B. Hussein Obama has nothing to complain about.
at July 14, 2008 9:25 AM
This is about the fifth time the Obama junta has called for censorship. Remember him warning "us" not to "go after his wife," -as though she has the right to pontificate to millions without fear of response? As though his outspoken, middle-aged Yale-graduate wife was equivalent to his young daughters?
Obama's demeanor, methods and ideology remind me of a smart, dangerous third world dictator.
www.bravenewsworld.com
at July 14, 2008 9:38 AM
Reminds me of the Seinfeld gay comment: " I'm NOT Muslim (not that there's anything wrong with that....).
Way to go. Go postal about a cartoon. Now, let me see what kind of people go postal about cartoons?
Who do you Obama supporters remind me of...? Duh, connect the dots.
at July 14, 2008 9:51 AM
Poet. LOL!
Posted by: Ummah Gummah at July 14, 2008 10:04 AM
After years of offensive and insulting "W" cartoons, why the bellyaching?
Posted by: interestinconundrum at July 14, 2008 10:06 AM
What's wrong with them saying they don't like it? Obama's group is not trying to suppress anything; they are entitled to an opinion, after all and entitled to express it, just like anyone else. Were their opinion accompanied with threats, that's something else, but it wasn't. I don't see an issue here.
Posted by: Seymour Paine at July 14, 2008 10:14 AM
I support demonizing Obama. He is going to be a tarrible President. He is clueless on how wealth is formed and maintained. He is a peace in our time liberal who will defend US only under political pressure like Clinton.
His latest proposal is to subsidies gasoline. Are we really going to elect someone that clueless?
Obama and Michel at least know, people who fit in this picture very well. Can't sand the heat? Well?
Posted by: Ruebacca at July 14, 2008 10:18 AM
http://www.theobamafile.com/
Lots of information.
at July 14, 2008 10:19 AM
Obama Yomama!
Posted by: Cornelius at July 14, 2008 10:19 AM
"Barack Obama's campaign lashed out Sunday at the editors of The New Yorker magazine for a cartoon cover that depicts the Democratic candidate and his wife as fist-bumping terrorists"
Seymour Paine,
It is not the campaign's place to "lash out" at the editors. Given that this man seeks to rule all of us, he should be prepared to look at such pictures and go on about his business.
He's a constitutional lawyer and he's a public figure and so is his wife. Either he believes in free speech or he doesn't.
If he objects to the picture then show all of us why it's not true. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The actions of Obama, like telling us to leave Michelle alone after she inserted herself into the campaign with her remarks about all Americans, indicate a predilection for censorship.
at July 14, 2008 10:43 AM
If it was satire of the "Right" why didn't the Left laugh?
Obama can't take a joke.
He can only be one.
Posted by: profitsbeard at July 14, 2008 11:04 AM
Abscedere,
More info on the cartoon. There is an article detailing Obama's rise in Chicago politics.
All is not lost. Clarence Page, of the Chicago Tribune, says this cartoon is normal journalism, that all it is doing is lampooning the crazies. Even MSM has responsible journalists.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0708/11718.html
Posted by: PMK at July 14, 2008 11:09 AM
Your esperantesque version is funny.
Posted by: Hugh at July 14, 2008 1:13 PM
Political cartoons are "tasteless and offensive" that goes with the territory. How many times have we seen George W. Bush portrayed as Adolph Hitler? I also have no problem with people criticizing this cartoon, that's a part of free speech. The problems arise when individuals or groups attempt to censor speech they find offensive through rioting or other means.I say the more cartoons the better about Obama, about McCain about Mohammed about whoever.
What the Obama campaign's reaction to this cartoon in a lefty publication shows, is their knee jerk reaction to being associated in any way with Islam.They clearly see Muslims as "radioactive" in America. This also gives us some insight into Obama's character. Would he be able to handle the whithering level of abuse and criticism George W. Bush has been subjected to for the last 8 years? What about the abuse that Bill Clinton was subjected to in the previous 8 years? Do we really want such a weak and thin skinned man for President?
Posted by: Roxane at July 14, 2008 1:21 PM
New Yorker editor David Remnick seemed shocked by the backlash.
"Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to the absurd. And that's the spirit of this cover"
........................
Remick may have to get used to being shocked. He's right, though--this is the essence of satire, which is an indispensible form of both criticism and humor in the West.
Vince wrote:
Does anyone know if the New Yorker staff are Clinton diehards?
Many Clinton supporters believe that there is still time for Hillary to get the nomination , this could be part of scorched earth tactics.
.......................
No way, Vince. The title of Barry Blitt's piece is "The Politics of Fear"--a far-left buzz phrase poking fun at those who take the idea of a terrorist threat "too seriously". The idea is that Geo. W. Bush and company are trying to stay in power by needlessly scaring the rubes into thinking that there is a real terrorist threat.
This cover is basically an illustration of Obama's website, "Fight the Smears". It is making fun of these concerns, *not* raising them. I disagree completely with Blitt's point--I think these are all legitimate concerns--but he has every right to illustrate his opinions.
Robert wrote:
"Finally, to see a political cartoon being denounced these days makes me uneasy. There are indeed plenty of political cartoons that are truly tasteless and offensive, but in a world in which Islamic organizations are making concerted efforts to compel Western countries to limit free speech because of a few political cartoons, it would have been much wiser for the Obama camp to have laughed this one off."
I concur. I may not agree with Blitt's politics, but he is a fine cartoonist--one of the New Yorker's best. There have already been calls for his firing. That this is all a misunderstanding--he is, after all, an Obama supporter--just makes this all the more ironic.
We all have to stand up for free speech.
Posted by: gravenimage at July 14, 2008 2:42 PM
We all have to stand up for free speech.
Posted by: gravenimage
Ditto.
Posted by: walterc at July 14, 2008 3:26 PM
Obama is an empty vessel, motivated solely by ego and the quest for power, but otherwise devoid of any discernable morals, principals, genuine faith, or guiding philosophy. That is why he is able to brazenly proclaim to his Jewish audience that 'Jerusalem must be the undivided capitol of Israel' and then just as brazenly retract what he said when the inevitable barrage of arab outrage ensued. What does he really believe? He believes in the greatness of Barack Obama, and nothing else. This makes him very dangerous. Like Clinton, that empty vessel can be easily filled with notions from those advisors who do have strong feelings about things, or who are themselves motivated by vast arab wealth, to be paid out by people who want to see their puppet in the White House.
His cousin raila odinga is of similar ilk, willing to do anything, including promising implementation of sharia to Indonesian muslims, in exchange for power.
Posted by: Infidel33 at July 14, 2008 3:45 PM
Sorry, that's Kenyan muslims, of course.
Posted by: Infidel33 at July 14, 2008 3:48 PM
The wonderful humor Multiculturalism inspires.
If Obama sinks himself with his core supporters by becoming too "Right Wing". Hitlery can come charging back leaning to the Left.
Hitlery gave Obama her support but I believe she still retains her control of her delegates. It would not suprise me to see the Demoncrats change their investments again.
Traveling free market Socialists all.
Posted by: flowerknife_us at July 14, 2008 4:06 PM
Of course, while I do not believe Obama is a secret Muslim, it is undeniable that according to Islamic law, he was a Muslim, and if he is now a Christian, he is an apostate and the penalty for that in Sharia law is well-known.
Given that, I would not put it past the man to "clarify" himself and proclaim that he was a secret Muslim the whole time, if events lead him to believe it will be politically expedient to do so.
Posted by: George guy at July 14, 2008 4:21 PM
boohoo Nobama is crying the blues, l hope Americans see what a crybaby he really is. he has no backbone, and will bend like a branch in the wind.
Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at July 14, 2008 5:10 PM
I was at Grand Central this early afternoon to look for the Obama issue of The New Yorker.
Guess what? There was a stack of Newsweek.. Obama on the cover.. next to some other stack I think the Economist?.. which had Nelson Mandela on the cover. I'd like to believe it was soemthing other than the Economist.
I am happy to report that a stack of Rolling Stone also figured quite prominently at the register.. you guessed it.. his Obaminationess on the cover!
I looked around for the New Yorker and it was NOWHERE in sight!
Too many people too little time and I didn't bother asking the clerk for it.
I will look around to see if and if so how the New Yorker gets displayed this week.
Posted by: Ummah Gummah at July 14, 2008 7:28 PM
I know I'm late to this article and haven't read any comments. The reaction of the Obama people reminds me to a certain extent of the reaction over the Mo'toons. They are having apoplectic fits in Obamastan. Although there are no riots, and no injuries, they are livid.
When I think of the vile things that the libs have said and written about Bush and Gingrich for example, I say keep piling it on. We may discover what Obama is really like.
Posted by: Pelayo at July 14, 2008 10:44 PM
Jokes are never funny - unless there's an element of truth in them.
Posted by: Stefcho at July 15, 2008 5:42 AM
Thanks Hugh - I've saved parts of your wonderful post to explain him to all the clueless Obamiacs in Amsterdam..Everybody's so haplessly euphoric about their very own New Kennedy, they make mesick
What by the way is nymic??
Posted by: Warhorse at July 15, 2008 9:06 AM
ummah gummah
Another recent issue of the Economist had photos of Obama and McCain on its cover, with the tag line: "the best of America."
This positively sickened me. To imply that either of these witless jerks is the best our country can produce is a gigantic insult. I can think of dozens -- no, hundreds -- of people better qualified for the Presidency than these two.
at July 15, 2008 9:31 AM
ebonystone.. half the people on Jihadwatch could do better than either one of these losers. And that's probably selling us short.
Posted by: Ummah Gummah at July 15, 2008 12:08 PM
Many Major cities ran out of the magazine by 7:30 Am this morning. I bought ten copies in support of The Newyorker and not I feel lucky. I can sell five of them at $100 each. Any takers?
This one is for the prosperity!
Posted by: American at July 15, 2008 3:41 PM
Comments are turned off and archived for this entry.
(Note: The Comments section is provided in the interests of free speech only. It is mostly unmoderated, but comments that are off-topic, offensive, slanderous, or otherwise annoying stand a chance of being deleted. The fact that any comment remains on the site IN NO WAY constitutes an endorsement by Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch, or by Robert Spencer or any other Jihad Watch or Dhimmi Watch writer, of any view expressed, fact alleged, or link provided in that comment.)