Sunday, July 13, 2008

Sticks & Stones.


From Politico:

The Obama campaign is condemning as “tasteless and offensive” a New Yorker magazine cover that depicts Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) in a turban, fist-bumping his gun-slinging wife.  An American flag burns in their fireplace.  The New Yorker says it's satire. It certainly will be candy for cable news.  The Obama campaign quickly condemned the rendering. Spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement: “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."

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds quickly e-mailed: “We completely agree with the Obama campaign, it’s tasteless and offensive.” 

See, I disagree with the Obama campaign's condemnation.

I think it's a funny cover.

I get it.

I'm sure you do, too.

I think it's best to embrace satire, and to use it in shining a bright light on the charlatans and miscreants intent on endlessly repackaging false imagery to propel the 24-hour news cycle into one lasting long enough to qualify as a shit-storm. 

Just wait until talk radio and the cable TV buffoons get their hands on this. 

F*** reacting.

Attack! Own every moment, and make sure the joke's always on them

Laugh and dismiss nonsense as "nonsense", and take the next question.

And never look back.

Be, um, audacious.

It's powerful--and disarmingly neutering--to look, laugh, and poke holes in a straw man's desperate trial balloon that has now been given yet more flatuous hot air with which to fly. 

So, take the air out...

allvoices

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm outraged. At least in Mad magazine you would been able to fold it up and reveal a secret terrorist message...

TBLMISBT

JohnnyRussia said...

Yeah, but I still haven't received the spy decoder ring I ordered in 1968.

gdahimself said...

An unhappy reality is that some people will think that is a literal comment on the Obamas, like there are people who regard the articles in The National Inquirer as having some basis in fact, The "if there's smoke, there must fire" mindset.

Some people don't have the sophisication or are willing to take the time to understand it as satire.

JohnnyRussia said...

Yup. And there are a bunch of 'em. They're the same people who open--and believe--the viral junk e-mails painting Obama as a Muslim, a Manchurian candidate, a closet terrorist, et al, and they are the same people who tonight are calling their fellow mutants asking them if they've "heard the news".

They're fringe, though, but some of 'em are noisy.

Misunderstood satire is the hallmark of fools.