I’ve Gotcha Covered!

Oh, kids! Didya see it? Of course, I am talking about The New Yorker magazine cover! From ABC News:

The sophisticates at The New Yorker have come up with a cover that is sure to get the magazine a lot of attention. Negative attention. From their friends.

An illustration by Barry Blitt depicts Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and his wife Michelle in the Oval Office, revealing their “true” selves: Michelle is in full revolutionary garb, an enormous afro making her look like a millennial Angela Davis, holding an automatic weapon and wearing military pants.

In the cartoon Michelle is giving dap, or fist-bumping, with her husband who is wearing a turban and is dressed in garb perhaps more appropriate for a madrassa in Lahore than the Oval Office.

A painting of Osama bin Laden hangs above the fireplace, where the American flag is being burned.

Well, you know me, kids! I am always here to help out! I don’t want the people at The New Yorker working too hard. In the spirit of fairness, I thought Captain Underpants and his botoxed recipe stealing Stepford lovely wife, Cindy Lou, should have a super-cool cover, too, so I created one! Hey, The New Yorker! You have my permission to use this one….

Original magazine cover.

Said Obama spox 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 Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”

Knowing the liberal politics of the magazine, I believe the magazine’s staff when they say the illustration is meant ironically, as a parody of the caricature some conservatives (and some supporters of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.) are painting of the Obamas.

But it’s still fairly incendiary, at least as these things go.

From The Huffington Post:

Barry Blitt is the artist behind this week’s very controversial New Yorker cover of Barack and Michelle Obama. […] Here’s what he wrote:

I think the idea that the Obamas are branded as unpatriotic [let alone as terrorists] in certain sectors is preposterous. It seemed to me that depicting the concept would show it as the fear-mongering ridiculousness that it is.

Oh, my! I had better write a disclosure before the conservatives attack me for my cover!

I think the idea that Captain Underpants Senator John McCain is branded as old, foul-mouthed, Chimpy-hugging, Constitution-burning, and angry [let alone beholden to almost every lobbyist who ever came down the pike], and that Cindy Lou McCain is branded as drug-abusing and filthy rich [let alone charging staggering amounts on her credit cards] in certain sectors is preposterous. It seemed to me that depicting the concept would show it as the truth-mongering ridiculousness that it is.