I still say it's satire.

I probably should have blogged about this earlier, but meh.

Does anybody remember this?


Thought so.

The Obama campaign called the cover "tasteless and offensive" and the McCain campaign agreed*. I disagree. The point of the cover was that it was simultaneously sending up the endless rumours about Barack's and Michelle's religion and patriotism, and in doing so showing the bigotry that still exists in America. The NY was stating "America, you're so f*cked up that this is actually what you believe." If anything, the cover was attacking the Republicans who continued to believe-and peddle-the long since debunked rumours.

As David Remnick said:

"The intent of the cover is to satirize the vicious and racist attacks and rumors and misconceptions about the Obamas that have been floating around in the blogosphere and are reflected in public opinion polls. What we set out to do was to throw all these images together, which are all over the top and to shine a kind of harsh light on them, to satirize them. That’s part of what we do."

The main problem with the cover is that none of this is mentioned. If there was a caption which said "Obama: dispelling the myths" or something similar, then more people would probably realise the satire behind the image-I took me over a week to realise what the cover was saying.

Personally, I hope to see an cover parodying McCain's ludicrous smears to Obama.

*Although McCain's spin doctors were probably salivating over the cover and how it was reinforcing the image of Obama that had already formed in the minds of the redneck Republican voters.