You are correct that satire is a delicate balance, and not everyone is going to like the point the satirist is making. However, this example goes a bit overboard on it's characterization of the Obama's right-wing image. By itself, it seems to be a slam on the Obamas, not the right-wing cariacature of them. The other examples you provide are all offensive to somebody, but with a touch of humor. The Obama cover does not provide that bit of humor to soften the satire.

Satirical characterizations about politicians,are part of our political and democratic history. Regardless of the New Yorker's intentions, it is their right to express themselves in this way. We are free to have differing opinions and to discuss in open debate. That is what this process is all about. The New Yorker need not apologize to anyone.

Good on you! Does make one wonder, how can it be that so many (including the Obama campaign!) complain about the latest cartoon titled "The Politics of Fear" but not some of the others -- like Obama in bed with Hillary?

Exaggerated illustration of slander is not good satire against the slanderers unless the exaggerations are strong enough and focused enough to direct ridicule at them. The danger of such attempts is that, if they are not done with mastery, they reinforce the slander. I regret to say this cover does not work, although it is full of exaggerations, because they do not draw attention away from themselves to an object of ridicule. Nor, in my opinion, do they force the viewer to seek out the satirical purpose. It is a sign of weakness when the title of a visual work must be relied on to make the point.

I personally like satire, but historically it has been lost on the masses; for example, when Jonathan Swift's "Modest Proposal" was published in 1729, many people thought he was seriously proposing infanticide and cannibalism. It is not unreasonable to guess that satire might also be lost on the populace today; we are a nation brought up on Tiger Beat, Muscle & Fitness and People magazines, and certainly there are many who have never opened the New Yorker, much less are aware that it is "a magazine known for many covers, cartoons, and articles that 'expose and discredit vice or folly.'" Taking this into consideration, there are many who, in passing the magazine, might only see that powerful illustration, never realizing its true intent (just imagine that image floating around in a mind that also believes Bat Boy exists!).

No competent strategist would chance a political candidate's campaign on images/messages that can be misinterpreted to the candidate's detriment; it seems Obama's people are cognisant of this and reacted accordingly. I agree with the principles behind Steven's statement that "not everyone need agree on whether [satire] succeeds," but in this case satire has collided head-first with what amounts to delicate, high-stakes marketing. In marketing, success is not optional.

Steve:
Wonderful observation about not believing the New Yorker context could be mistaken for anything but what it is. I completely agree. All my non-artist friends tell me otherwise. Are we, as visual communicators, looking over a chasm that we thought most of the rest of the world had followed us across but, in actuality, for the most part, never did?
Steve

This is a beautifully executed drawing -- Barry Blitt got Michelle's posture and mien down perfectly. But I think the ``Let's make it so over the top that the satire will be obvious!'' direction of it, with added Osama goodness, just shows that it is weak and misguided as a concept.
I'm an Obama supporter, and subscribe to the New Yorker FOR ITS SATIRE,but the whole thing is seared in my memory far more than any photographs of the couple I've seen; and I will never see Michelle again without thinking of how great she looked in her Angela Davis wig.
Barbara Lippert
p.s. love the daily Heller

I think the cover is absolutely on point. A satiric point. Many people still believe that the Obamas are Muslim, that the fist bump is terrorist code, that they and everyone on the left prays to Mecca and Osam Bin Laden, that we are all warming ourselves with the amber glow of burning flags. It is all nonsene of course, it is nothing more than rumor mongering, innuendo, and character assasination. Is the illustration tasteless? I don't think so, it is simply speaking truth to the power of lies. Yes, there are some people that will take manufactured offense at the image, that it will do damage to the Obama campaign, but I think the conversation we have about it will bring to light the ugly rumor campaign and those that are spreading it. I think it is a great image. Most people in the last 24 hours claim to want context, they want a caption or to add Fox News logos, or Rush and Hannity and Coulter somewhere in the illustration. The power of the image is in what is NOT there. When you add too many ancillary thoughts/images you weaken the power of the main idea. This is why the cover as is is so successful. In fact putting aside all of the supposedly incendiary images that most people will be talking about, the obvious things I mentioned already, fist-bumping, flag burning, weapon toting and the terror camp outfits, the thing that I LOVE the most is the fact that Mr. Blitt has let Michelle Obama's hair grow out. Nothing frightens white America more than an Afro. Or heaven forbid cornrows.

Steven Heller states that it's difficult to see Barry Blitt's illustration as anything other than what it is. And considering that this is a PRINT blog – as Heller also notes, context is everything – I'm sure most of his readers are in easy agreement with him.

Indeed, a large part of the recent talk show chattering in opposition to the cover has been along the lines of, "Sure, I get it... I'm just worried about all those other people, not as hip as me, who won't get it."

Personally, I neither love it nor hate it. I simply felt it was, in itself, no big deal. Having long suffered listening to all the ignorant slurs directed at the Obamas, I'd already conjured up a very similar picture in my mind. To actually see it printed was pretty much a redundancy. Perhaps if that same image had been rendered by a different artist, in a crude scrawl suggestive of wall graffiti, I'd have given it more credit for pushing the concept to another level of visual commentary.

This is not to say Blitt didn't do a good job. If I commissioned art to accompany a text piece about those vile smears, I'd expect to receive something along the lines of what he did. But hey, I generally expect more from a New Yorker cover.

The other New Yorker covers reproduced above derive their humor from their use of visual metaphor. The humor of the current cover in question derives from the fact that anyone – anyone hip, that is – who sees the New Yorker logo – and who reads the title of the cover, "The Politics of Fear," on the table of contents – will know that the intent is ironic. Personally, I prefer metaphor to irony; it tends to make viewers work harder.

But what if the logo was Photoshopped out and Blitt's stand-alone image was bootlegged on T-shirts sold by anti-Obama organizations to voters who've never heard of the magazine? Or to go even further, what if the image was appropriated and virally distributed as a "Vote McCain" graphic?

Far fetched, you say? Not really. Consider Robert Crumb's three page comic strip, "When the Niggers Take Over America!," which originally ran in Weirdo in 1993 but was subsequently reproduced in several racist publications without permission... and which, not so incidentally, was attacked for that very reason by another New Yorker cover artist by the name of Art Spiegelman.

Hey, what if Blitt was someone who didn't like Obama and had created that very same artwork to promote the Republican agenda? Yep, context is everything.

Okay, enough speculation.

Yes, of course Blitt's cover should have been published. Yes, of course it's legitimate satire, and it's a clear free speech issue. All this is so blatantly obvious it barely seems worth mentioning.

But just because the New Yorker is the only major magazine on the stands that has enough guts to occasionally publish covers that actually say something substantive these days (R.I.P. 1960s Esquire), this doesn't mean we have to defend them unequivocally, without taking a moment to consider how they might have been better.

~ mike D

Looks like Ruben Bolling beat the New Yorker to the punch by three months –

http://gocomics.typepad.com/tomthedancingbugblog/2008/07/the-new-yorkers.html

Satire is lost when there is more truth than irony.

This is frightenly similar to the Allah cartoons in the Netherlands.

Has anyone else noted that the last group of people who overreacted to a political cartoon depicting Islamic extremism were themselves Islamic extremist. There's an odd bit of irony here in regards to that.

Thankfully the illusion of free speech here in America still prevails so the New Yorker need not apologize about the cover.

No competent strategist would chance a political candidate's campaign on images/messages that can be misinterpreted to the candidate's detriment; it seems Obama's people are cognisant of this and reacted accordingly. I agree with the principles behind Steven's statement that "not everyone need agree on whether [satire] succeeds," but in this case satire has collided head-first with what amounts to delicate, high-stakes marketing. In marketing, success is not optional.