[Rhodes22-list] Political Satire and the New Yorker is a Northeast Media?

Wed Jul 16 05:58:16 EDT 2008

Ed,

Wanna bet how long it takes for the Fairness Doctrine to show-up on the
agenda if both the Congress and the White House end-up in the hands of the
"progressives"? It's been my experience that those who preach 'tolerance'
are usually the least tolerant of those who may disagree with their views.

Brad

----------------------

July 16, 2008 America's Satire-A-Thon *By* *Kathleen
Parker*<http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/author/kathleen_parker/>

WASHINGTON -- *"Damn you and the likes of you to the bowels of hell, you
ignorant racist bastard!"*

So wrote an outraged Muslim to political cartoonist Doug Marlette a few
years ago after he drew a cartoon featuring the prophet Muhammad.

Tens of thousands of Muslims bellowed, blogged and clogged until servers
collapsed with hate mail and death threats.

No cartoon -- or cartoonist -- would go unpunished.

Here we go again.

Similar passions are being expressed this week in response to another
cartoon, this time on the cover of the liberal-leaning New Yorker magazine.
And this time, those railing against an "offensive" image are not religious
fundamentalists of the far right, but political secularists of the far left.

Without even a wink at satire, the same righteous literal-mindedness that we
tend to associate with the unenlightened has found expression among those
who regard themselves as the most enlightened.

The cartoon prompting this latest run on smelling salts features Barack and
Michelle Obama in the Oval Office. The senator, dressed in Muslim garb, is
fist-bumping his wife, who sports an Angela Davis afro and wears a rifle
slung over her shoulder. An American flag burns in the fireplace, over which
hangs a portrait of someone resembling Osama bin Laden.

Get it? The play on exaggerated stereotypes? The un-nuanced spoofing of
Americanus Ignoramus? But no.

Oh, the outrage. *It's racist!* shouts the left. *It's stereotyping!* Well,
duh, cartoons are like that. *It's feeding the ignorant misperceptions of
the loony right!*

As Marlette would say: "Puh-leez."

The intent of the illustration should be clear to anyone attuned to current
events. Cartoonist Barry Blitt was poking fun at all the rumors and fearsome
phobias circulating about the Obamas among a certain contingent. We know who
they are.

Viral e-mails claim, for instance, that Obama is a Muslim; that Obama was
sworn into the Senate using a Koran instead of a Bible; that Obama isn't a
patriot because he refuses to wear a flag pin or put his hand over his heart
during the national anthem; that Michelle Obama is militantly anti-American.
And so on.

All these claims have been clarified and/or refuted for anyone curious
enough to seek the truth. Even so, a certain percentage of people will
continue to believe what they choose no matter what.

In any case, those about whom the outraged presumably are most concerned
are: (1) unlikely to pick up a New Yorker; (2) unlikely to be swayed or
disabused of their preconceptions. So what exactly are they worried about?

That yahoos just passing by a newsstand will see those images and have their
paranoid suspicions confirmed?

Such is elitism at its most self-destructive. Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer
Prize-winning cartoonist and former New Yorker staffer, put it nicely to the
San Francisco Chronicle: "The essence of what they're saying is, 'I get it,
but I don't trust the people in Kansas to get it.'"

Sanitizing satire either to buffer the sensitivities of those who consider
themselves more highly evolved -- or to withhold kindling from those deemed
less sophisticated -- is all of a piece.

Ignorance is the common denominator.

While one strain of ignorance likely springs from misinformation or a lack
of educated knowledge, the other is more virulent by virtue of its opposite
circumstances.

For his part, Obama may be missing a Sister Souljah opportunity to
demonstrate both his smarts and his common sense. His campaign has called
The New Yorker cover "tasteless and offensive." John McCain chimed in with
"totally inappropriate."

Harrumph, harrumph, harrumph.

Far more important than anyone's feelings -- and Obama surely knows this --
is freedom of expression. Yet those who are objecting to the cover
apparently think that only certain ideas should be expressed. And that some
portion of conservative America is too stupid to get it.

Marlette, who died prematurely a year ago in a freak accident that robbed
the world of his necessary voice, would say that we don't need protection
from offensive words and images. Instead, he would insist that we need
protection from those who would censor ideas they find objectionable and
whose literal minds make common cause with fascist fundamentalists
everywhere.

In the final calculation, unsophisticated yahoos, to the extent they really
are, pose a lesser threat to the nation than an elitist intelligentsia
convinced it knows what's best for the rest.
 kparker at kparker.com <%20kparker at kparker.com>

On Tue, Jul 15, 2008 at 7:40 AM, Tootle <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:

>
> Brad:
>
> Excellent reply and reference.  Too bad our former Chicago Rhodie is an
> ostrich and stuck his head in the sand.  Maybe you should forward your
> comments directly to Ron..., but then he would probably blacklist you?
>
> I really liked:
>
> http://www.collegeotr.com/georgetown_university/rejected_new_yorker_covers_9944
>
> Ed K
> Greenville, SC, USA
> Attachment:
>
> http://www.nabble.com/file/p18464247/National%2BDemocrat%2Bno%2Bdrill%2Bpolicy.gif
> National+Democrat+no+drill+policy.gif
>
>
> Brad Haslett-2 wrote:
> >
> > The recent "flap" over the Obama New Yorker cover is one of the most
> > amusing
> > events I've witnessed in over four decades of closely following politics.
> > Of course, the New Yorker cover was supposed to be making fun of barely
> > educated rednecks like me living in fly-over states (despite the fact I
> > was
> > a subscriber for over ten years).  They got a little too clever for
> > themselves.  The burning flag in the fireplace did remind me of  the
> photo
> > of Bill Ayers standing on the US flag, the Bin Laden portrait of the fact
> > that Hamas did endorse the Chocolate Baby Jesus, and that Michelle with
> an
> > AK-47 is certainly hostile about a lot of issues.  What's lost in all
> this
> > is what was inside the cover - it's worth reading and you can here-
> >
> > http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/21/080721fa_fact_lizza
> >
> >
> > If you read the links I posted a couple of weeks ago from a
> self-described
> > liberal who watched Barry rise in Chicago politics, you'll understand
> more
> > about some of the concerns expressed in the New Yorker article by some of
> > his former comrades, er, fellow political pols.
> >
> > It could have been worse.  Here's some covers that got rejected-
> >
> >
> http://www.collegeotr.com/georgetown_university/rejected_new_yorker_covers_9944
> >
> > If Obama wasn't such a snob, he'd have a good laugh about this and stick
> > in
> > everyone's eye.  He needn't worry about Jesse Jackson cutting off his
> > 'nads', he have to grow a pair first! I'm tellin' ya, this is more fun
> > than
> > the dog track!
> >
> > Brad
> > __________________________________________________
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> > __________________________________________________
> >
> >
>
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> National+Democrat+no+drill+policy.gif
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