"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."

"First off, let's make one thing clear. John McCain has repeatedly had his wife, Cindy, attack Michelle Obama because Mrs. Obama said that for the first time in her adult life she was really proud of her country. Mrs. McCain had the nerve to say that, unlike Mrs. Obama, she's ALWAYS been proud of her country. Now we find out that John McCain not only wasn't proud of his country as an adult, he didn't even love it while he was fighting for it. McCain made 'love of country' relevant when he decided to use it to repeatedly attack Mrs. Obama (as recently as yesterday [June 19, 2008]).

Yes, John McCain has repeatedly stated that he didn't love our country until he was captured as a POW during Vietnam. Here's what McCain said in March on FOX:

'I didn't really love America until I was deprived of her company.'

Then there's McCain in 1999:

'It wasn't until I was deprived of her company that I fell in love with America.'

McCain was 31 years old when he was captured. 31. Far into adulthood. So McCain was fighting for our country, a country he didn't love. And we're supposed to respect the military service of a man who didn't love his country. Then why was he fighting?

How is this any different from what Michelle Obama said? Mrs. Obama said that for the first time in her adult life she was really proud of our country. McCain said that he never loved our country before the age of 31. At least Mrs. Obama was proud of our country before, and she always loved our country. McCain not so much - let's face it, if John McCain didn't love America as an adult, he most certainly wasn't proud of her. And another thing. Michelle Obama is the candidate's WIFE. John McCain wants to be commander in chief of a country he didn't love."

Here's what's going to happen. Fox News is going to have a whole day where they talk about nothing but this and repeatedly show the image just like they did with Wright. Then Limbaugh will be saying "Well look, these liberals can make drawing like this and we call it harmless satire, so why did they give me so much grief when I played the song Obama the Magic Negro on my show. It's liberal hypocrisy I tell you!

FINALLY.... the democrats are getting some of their own medicine. John McCain might be old, but he loves America! I LOVE THIS COVER!!!! It speaks a thousand words!

WOW. It sure took some cajones to put that on the cover of the New Yorker. In all honesty, this is what a vast majority of people are thinking but won't say out loud due to political correctness. If Obama is elected, God only knows how far this country will sink.

All they did was put into one picture what a lot of people are thinking.

Looks like Obama and Omama to me. Did anyone notice the burning flag in fireplace ? very fitting,,,New yorker rocks,,,

Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning.
Funny, I don't see Barry Blitt on that list.
posted by [NOT HERMITOSIS-IST] at 6:58 PM on July 13 [+] [!]

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.

"Normally I'd want the work to speak for itself ¡ª normally I'd not want to explain jokes, or short stories, or a piece of non-fiction that we publish ¡ª people always read things the way they're going to read them. In this case, since I see that it's stirred the pot somewhat, and some people have misinterpreted it very quickly, I'm talking to you. The image tries to be as clear a possible. The title tries to make sure of that. (Ed. The title does not appear on the cover, but is listed in the Table of Contents, in the magazine and online.)"

"On the right, some conservatives agree the cover is offensive and tasteless, not just to Obama but to them. It is meant to show conservatives as 'ignorant racists', says Philip Klein at the American Spectator. If Obama loses, says Jim Geraghty at National Review's Campaign Spot, the magazine will blame it on 'Republican smear artists.' Ed Morrissey at Hot Air says Obama is lucky the cover will divert attention from the article inside.

David Brody, a Christian conservative blogger at CBN, says the cover perpetuates stereotypes and creates danger for Obama: 'While The New Yorker may think that portrayal isn¡¯t accurate, Obama¡¯s critics on the right think the picture is spot on. I mean, this thing has ¡®copy and paste' written all over it. Expect to see this jpeg picture popping up in conservative emails everywhere.'"

"It's the classic problem of American journalism, and American society, vis-a-vis Democrats and the left. Tangentially suggest that getting shot down doesn't necessarily qualify John McCain to be president and you are the one who hates America. There's no discussion, no debate. The question simply cannot be asked because the conclusion is 'obvious' and unworthy of debate, and debate itself is deemed offensive. But portray Barack Obama and his wife as a walking racial - nay, racist - stereotype, and it's not just acceptable, but anyone who would question the propriety of such a portrayal is, again, un-American.

Criticize McCain, you're un-American. Defend Obama, you're un-American.

Now, imagine had Barack Obama said that he didn't love his country until he was a 30-something. Do you think Obama would face criticism? Do you honestly think he'd even survive as a candidate in post 9/11 America? And then imagine were John McCain mocked on the cover of the New Yorker, dressed in POW garb, with a drug addicted, pill popping, gun-toting wife and depicted in a manner that suggested that he loves Osama bin Laden and hates America. Would the corporate media be talking about pro-McCain PC-ists who can't take a joke? Or would the New Yorker get Dixie Chicked?" ^*

"The New Yorker maintains that the illustration on the cover of its current issue (right) is meant to satirize, not spread, the smears and rumors about Sen. Barack Obama -- that he is an unpatriotic Muslim with terrorist sympathies who hates the American flag..

I take the editors at their word and await the upcoming cover in which they give the same ha-ha-isn't-it-silly? treatment to the rotten things people say about John McCain: Say a cartoon showing him looking about 150 years old and spouting demented non-sequiturs in the middle of a violent temper tantrum while, in the corner, his wife is passed out next to a bottle of pills.

It's only satire, right?"

Q: Did Remnick's overt support for the war have anything to do with your decision to leave The New Yorker in 2003?

Spiegelman: Remnick did something unusual in writing a "Talk of the Town" about being a reluctant hawk. And that was rather shocking, because it's not like the magazine is required to have an editorial. It's not like The New York Times in that way or The Wall Street Journal, where it's important to know exactly where the magazine is coming from.

The absolute cowardice of the mainstream American press at that time was overwhelming.

Barackula is a short political horror rock musical about young Barack Obama having to stave off a secret society of vampires at Harvard when he was inducted into presidency at the Harvard Law Review in 1990. Obama (Justin Sherman) finds that he must convince the vampire society that opposing political philosophies can coexist or else the society may transform Obama to the dark side.

the campaign's reaction makes the story. The New Yorker's circulation is almost entirely concentrated in true-blue coastal enclaves. It might have gotten some play on hard-right chat boards and blogs, but those audiences are a lock for John McCain as surely as Manhattan is a lock for Mr Obama. Now, however, the cover is plastered all over the cable news shows, for the viewing pleasure of millions who would never have seen it otherwise. And the reason, of course, is that the cover is "controversial". Try to imagine the same story running had the Obama campaign said something along the lines of: "Oh, yes, we saw that and were tickled; it really shows effectively how absurd and desperate some of the rumour-mongering on the right is." Would it be running then? Of course not¡ªand if it did, PowerLine would have an anyeurism [sic] about the news devoting air time to Obama propaganda.

There is a lesson here, but it is not about politics. It's about the intellectual integrity of scientists, specifically mind-scientists, who wish to apply what they know across borders. Cognitive scientific ways of speaking help us understand things more deeply only if they reveal something new, or give thicker and richer texture to an understanding we already have. Lakoff's premise- that the Enlightenment portrayed us as perfectly rational- is flawed. What about Hume, who famously argued that we are fthinkers (remember "reason is a slave to passion"?), or Adam Smith, Rousseau and Voltaire, all of whom thought profoundly about the role of sentiment? It was Smith, in fact, who first distinguished empathy from sympathy.

Lakoff ends the book with this: "we are far more fascinating creatures than Plato, Aristotle, Rousseau, Hobbes, Locke, Marx, J. S. Mill, and Rawls for instance- thought we were". Like most of the linguistic objects in this cacophony, this, as best I can tell, is just noise from neurons.