I dunno.

I still think that LONG after Pro-Obama people have forgotten about it...it will be hung in a prominent position in the cubicles/offices (bedrooms?) of Anti-Obama people.

I think it was an ill-thought out move....but, ya can't squish the toothpaste back into the tube. What's done is done.

my first reaction was a negative one....

but then i saw the reaction in the blogosphere and thought get a grip.  hell - someone for 5 minutes had a diary here blaming the jews on this.  really - its a cartoon.

Wah, wah, wah. They wanted a shitstorm. THey were BEGGING for one. They got it. I have no sympathy towards them. And while those for whom this is simple satire will forget all about it by next week, it will forever remain emblematic for people who don't see anything particularly funny about it beyond the cartoonish style.

You'd be surprised (or maybe you wouldn't) at the number of "it's funny cause it's true" reactions I've seen.  If the makers of the Hillary nutcracker had been smart enough to say "it's satire", then they'd have been in the clear - I mean cmon, it's not like anyone actually thinks that she cracks walnuts with her legs.

Besides - someone else said it already - they were literally asking for this.  I get so tired of this "who, me?" response when they do something to provoke a reaction.

Sy Hirsch will always have a job - it's not by the good graces of the New Yorker that he gets to publish.  I can read him online anyway.

I have had this Bush as Alfred E. Newman picture on my wall for years.
I hope it drives my Republican colleagues crazy, because it's not satire - it's the frigging TRUTH, baby! The New Yorker cover might end up on Republican's walls but only because they are stupid and don't understand true satire which is telling the story of their stupidity. I will welcome the chance to try to explain it to them over and over an over again.

I think some of you may be missing the point but so be it.  It's our New Yorker and we love it, mostly.  The Republicans who have latched on to this are going to be sorry when they wake up and the progressives who shouted it down in howls of derision will probably prefer to forget about their reaction altogether in time.  I can't imagine the New Yorker actually intended to provoke a maelstrom of controversy, it's not their way.

And yet...  Their busy little sardonic fingers never rest, bless 'em.

Satire.  It's supposed to make you think.  It's not slapstick, lowbrow humor.  People who don't think won't get it.  And they probably won't be voting for Obama anyway.

Nick Anderson, who also won a Pulitzer for his cartooning and serves as president of the American Association of Editorial cartoonists, agreed with Telnaes that the cartoon was intended as satire. But he also had some sharp words for the New Yorker cartoonist.

"I think, as a piece of satire, it utterly fails," Anderson told Politico. "The artist and the New Yorker editor [David Remnick] have claimed that it is so over the top that it is clearly absurd. But it's not sufficiently over the top. It is merely depicting what the whisper campaigns have been suggesting."

But Anderson argued that cartoonists have the responsibility not just to be provocative, but also to be clear. He reiterated that this particular cartoon is not clear enough in its satire to be effective.

"There is a constant and natural tension in the creation of satire," Anderson said. "The delicate art of satire is suffocated by heavy-handed elucidation. But, if the satirist fails to make the point clearly enough, the whole enterprise backfires in unintended misinterpretation."

That about sums it up for me. It's clear to the editor of the New Yorker and to the cartoonist what their intention was. They just failed at their intended goal because of ham handed and crude execution of their bit of 'satire'.

This image will take on a life of it's own quite the opposite of what was intended and not just for the mouth breathers who were never voting for Obama anyway. It will add to the background noise that affects the low information voter and the media will aid in the negative effects by stripping the image of it's context.

I think the problem is that some people are truly still undecided.  And this cover is not so over the top that those people will say "Hey, they are making fun of the myth that Obama's a Muslim."  Those people are going to say "Hey, Obama IS a Muslim!  I knew it!"  And whether or not they would have voted for him regardless, now they can use the Muslim thing as justification.  And it's ridiculous that being a Muslim is seen as a bad thing.  Stupid covers like this are contributing to this idea.