Maybe so, but turkeys can be right once in a while... :0)
Posted on 07/18/2008 11:28:15 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
To watch the contortions over that New Yorker cover cartoon of the Obamas is to understand whom it is impermissible to offend in the America of 2008.
The cartoon is a caricature of Michelle as an urban terrorist in an Angela Davis afro with an AK-47 slung over her back and a bandoleer of ammo in the Oval Office doing a fist-bump with a Barack decked out in turban and Muslim garb. On the wall hangs a portrait of Osama bin Laden. Blazing away in the fireplace is the American flag.
"President Obama and First Lady -- as Seen From the Right-Wing Point of View" might have been the caption. Phil Klein of American Spectator nailed it: "This cartoon is intended to make fun of conservatives as ignorant racists and essentially marginalize any criticism of Obama as moronic."
Unfortunately for the New Yorker, the cartoon misfired. Blow-ups are likely to be as pandemic in right-wing dorms this fall as were posters of "Che" Guevara in left-wing dorms in the 1970s.
Indeed, to a goodly slice of the media, this cartoon is no joking matter. Michelle and Barack had been dissed!
For 48 hours, editors Rick Hertzberg and David Remnick fended off attacks, assuring media interrogators the cartoon's purpose was not to satirize the Obamas but to satirize the caricature of Michelle and Barack in the mind of the paranoid right. Remnick insisted to The Huffington Post, "It's not a satire about Obama -- it's a satire about the distortions and misconceptions and prejudices about Obama."
Why did progressives recoil? Because the more savvy among them sense that, like much humor, this cartoon was an exaggeration that contained no small kernel of recognizable truth.
After all, Barack did dump the flag pin. Michelle did say she had never been proud of her country before now. Barack did don that Ali Baba outfit in Somalia. His father and stepfather were Muslims. He does have a benefactor, Bill Ayers, who said after 9-11 he regrets not planting more bombs in the 1960s. He did have a pastor who lionizes Black Muslim Minister Louis Farrakhan. Put glasses on him, and Barack could play Malcolm X in the movies.
And assume the point of the cartoon had been to satirize the Obamas. Why would that have been so outrageous?
Journalists, after all, still celebrate Herblock, the cartoonist who portrayed Richard Nixon with the body of a rat climbing out of a sewer.
Bill Clinton is still denounced as a racist for saying Barack's claim to have been consistent on Iraq was a "fairy tale" and for comparing his South Carolina primary victory to Jesse Jackson's.
Hillary Clinton has been compared to the sex-starved Glenn Close character in "Fatal Attraction." George Bush's verbal gaffes are endlessly panned by late-night comics and Comedy Central. But Barack gets the special-ed treatment. Our first affirmative action candidate.
The New Yorker made a "damn-fool decision," said George Lockwood, a lecturer on journalistic ethics.
David West of Brookings wailed to USA Today of the cartoon: "It's the mass media at its worst. It perpetuates false information, and it's highly inflammatory. ... It gives credibility to what's been circulating for months, and that's what makes it dangerous."
But dangerous to whom? Again, it is only a cartoon.
Barack called the cartoon "an insult against Muslim Americans." His campaign called it "tasteless and offensive." That they are miffed is understandable. After all, 12 percent of Americans think Barack took his oath on the Koran, 26 percent think he was raised a Muslim, and 39 percent think he went to a madrassa.
Yet, the reaction of our cultural elites is the more interesting and instructive.
For it suggests that Obama is an untouchable to be protected. As an African-American, he is not to be treated the same as other politicians. Remnick and Hertzberg obviously felt intense moral pressure to remove any suspicion that they had satirized the Obamas. No problem, however, if they were mocking the American right.
Bottom line: If you wish to stay in the good graces of the cultural elite, don't mess with Michelle and Barack.
On display here is not only the sensitivity of the Obama folks to portrayals of him as a radical, but the sensitivity -- the naked fear -- of an elite magazine that it might be perceived as lending aid and comfort to any who would dare question the nobility and patriotic ardor of the Obamas.
If conservatives allow such a media to determine the weapons they may use and to limit the terrain upon which they are to be permitted to fight, they will lose this election. They have to peel the bark off Barack.
As for the New Yorker, it emerges from the episode as not just unheroic, but just another magazine desperate not to offend its readership or the people whose approbation it seeks as the measure of its moral worth.
Isn’t that third “North Vietnamese” on top supposed to be President Bush?
Even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then...
Pat is either dead right or dead wrong. With that assertion, he is dead right.
Pat gets it right for a change. This is going to PO his new leftist buddies who have gotten used to Pat trashing the right.
I’ve been waiting for somebody to dare to label Obama the “affirmative action candidate” for a long time. Totally unqualified, and if you criticize him, you’re a racist.
Maybe so, but turkeys can be right once in a while... :0)
Excellent article. This “Pat Buchanan” guy, why haven’t I heard more about him?
Mr. Buchanan is a superlative writer, a brilliant analyst, and very often correct.
Sometime he just hits them outta the park. Like this one.
Think so, doesn’t look like him.
A lot of people say we’re tired of our rights being curtailed, and they blame this on Bush. Obama supporters think he will restore a new era of freedom and civil liberties. Think again. Have we not already lost more free speech and expression just with Obama being in the race?? Anyone who dares offend him is hounded now. After he is president, how will he use his power against people who tick him off just by expressing their views?
“Pat gets it right for a change.”
He’s almost always right.
“This is going to PO his new leftist buddies who have gotten used to Pat trashing the right.”
Pat doesn’t trash the real right, he trashes neocons, who are often, on balance, barely disguised Trotskyites.
No, Pat is almost always wrong. It’s nice to see him on the right side for once, but he’s usually wrong, and he just rails against “neocons” because they took most of his TV gigs. Now he’s relegated to MSNBC to be their “typical frothing right-winger”.
LOL!
Excellent article. This “Pat Buchanan” guy, why haven’t I heard more about him?
**************
The Pat Buchanans and Ron Pauls are drowned out by these “Americans” and “Conservatives” (so-called) who beat the drums for more Kings vice patriots; along with the controlled/msm....
Forgive me for the truth—never mind, don’t!
He’s right on social issues (all of them), right on opposing internationalism & globalism, right on borders, mostly right on managed “free” trade agreements, and very good on taxes and fiscal conservatism.
IOW, he’s almost the diametric opposite of Boosh.
“I think it’s the exact opposite. They recoiled, because it contained TOO MUCH truth.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Exactly! The New Yorker crew was not smart enough to realize that you cannot satirize right wing reaction to what is beyond satire, namely the abominable Obamalamadingdong. How can you exaggerate something as absurd as an empty suit 46 year old first term senator who never should have advanced beyond the position of captain of latrine maintenance but is heralded by the press as the messiah who will deliver us from George W. Bush, a man whose fingernail clippings are more intelligent than Obama on his best day ever?
What I am attempting to say is I don’t think much of this clown from Chicago.
Pat is very astute when observing.
It's when he's opining that he needs to keep his trap shut.
Be that as it may, he does analyze the New Yorker cover cartoon flap accurately. Of course the weasels at the magazine squirmed and groveled when attacked by the left. Who is surprised? That the cartoon cover was far too realistic is obvious and that the attempt to satirize the conservatives supposed view of the Obama's backfired, big-time, is equally clear. Pat Buchanan got it right, this time. Kudos.
>>>>>>>He’s almost always right.
You are correct. Buchanan has been correct about all the big issues since the end of the Cold War.
Every time Buchanan writes an article I see this same thing. Over and over.
Pats always a jackass until he writes about something I personally agree with. Then he nails it!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.