A Completely Distorted View of the Obamas
By
How Ta-Nehisi Coates could think that infamous New Yorker cover is not overstated enough to qualify as a piece of satire is beyond me.
Everyone knows Obama would have a portrait of Sayyid Qutb over the fireplace before he even thought of bin Laden.
Michelle Obama with a Kalashnikov? Puh-lease. According to the last completely true anonymous viral email I read, Michelle packs an Uzi under her clothes. (Besides, D.C. gun laws, while moving in the right direction, have not not yet matured enough to allow the carrying of automatic weapons in the home or office.)
And an American flag in the fireplace when it could be put to much better and more eco-friendly use in the bathroom?
Come on, that cover is a complete caricature.
Maybe white folks shouldn’t draw pictures of Michelle Obama… (Ta-Nehisi Coates)
10 Comments
July 15th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Hi Mr Berger,
It is a day too late but what is this about- we all know the magazine published it to educate the ignorant, racist and right wing American voters.
But you seem to poke at them “Everyone knows Obama would have a portrait of Sayyid Qutb over the fireplace before he even thought of bin Laden.” and I don’t understand as to why you are doing that?
July 15th, 2008 at 8:02 pm
AAAhhhhh! Irony overload. Too much for Ermiyas. Does not compute.
(Not that I know what you’re on about like.)
July 16th, 2008 at 5:05 am
Cretin …
My comment clearly says Hi Mr Berger not Mr Cretin.
July 16th, 2008 at 7:31 am
It’s much easier to bring a carried weapon into play quickly if it is strapped vertically down one side of the back parallel to the spine rather than crossways as pictured.
July 16th, 2008 at 8:25 am
But Ermiyas, you should be thanking Cretin. He answered your question for you.
July 21st, 2008 at 7:21 am
I realize that the article was trying to poke fun at all the falsehoods surrounding Obama and that the New Yorker was trying to make a point and try to get people to understand the ridiculousness of all the rumors and falsehoods. The thing is – my cousin is one of the people that sent me an email saying that Obama was a Muslim – she’s not going to read the New Yorker. She won’t get the irony nor will a lot of other Americans.
July 21st, 2008 at 7:18 pm
The Left has no sense of humor. Could explain why they are so quick to engage in censorship of their opponents.
July 23rd, 2008 at 9:54 pm
My wife, an English Professor (after all, The New Yorker is first and foremost a literary endeavor, not a political one) wrote some more scholarly notes on the cover that I think puts this a little more perspective:
http://achairandtwoapples.com/?p=611
Though I’m definitely not voting for McCain, I tend to skew conservative while she tends to skew liberal; on this point, however, I totally agree with her reasoning about why the cover didn’t work.
July 24th, 2008 at 11:55 am
“I told you I was Ill”
Spike Milligan’s Epitaph
The above is a good reference point on the subject of humour… Politicians and politically focussed blogs probably are not. In fact, discussing the finer points of humour on a political blog in America is rather like trying to discuss cricket with a Penguin…
July 24th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I suppose it depends on the penguin.