New Yorker editor defends controversial Obama cover
* Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
* guardian.co.uk,
* Monday July 14, 2008
It was an image meant to raise hackles and it did: a cartoon on the cover of the New Yorker showing Barack and Michelle Obama -- dressed respectively as a Muslim and a gun-toting terrorist -- performing what rightwing commentators have called a "terrorist fist jab" while merrily burning an American flag in the fireplace of an Oval Office decorated with a portrait of Osama bin Laden.
The magazine arrived on newsstands today. But the editor, David Remnick, evidently anticipating a liberal backlash against a cover described today as incendiary and irresponsible, gave an interview to the Washington Post ahead of publication, saying the image was meant to be seen as humour, poking fun at the smear campaign against the Obamas.
"It's clearly a joke, a parody of these crazy fears and rumours and scare tactics about Obama's past and ideology," Remnick told the Post. "And if you can't tell it's a joke by the flag burning in the Oval Office, I don't know what more to say."
The accompanying cover story does not discuss the internet smear campaign which has portrayed the Democratic candidate as a radical Muslim, but traces Obama's rise through Chicago politics in the 1990s.
The satire was evidently lost on Obama's campaign and on his opponent, the Republican, John McCain. Both condemned the cartoon.
"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 rightwing critics have tried to create," the campaign said in a statement.
"But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."
Remnick, at least initially, defended the use of the cartoon and in an exchange with the Huffington Post denied trying to attract attention by deliberately courting controversy.
He also claimed New Yorker readers would be able to discern that the cartoon was meant as satire.
"I wouldn't have run a cover just to get attention," he said. "The idea that we would publish a cover saying these things literally, I think, is just not in the vocabulary of what we do and who we are."
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This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Monday July 14 2008. It was last updated at 18:25 on July 14 2008.
* Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
* guardian.co.uk,
* Monday July 14, 2008
It was an image meant to raise hackles and it did: a cartoon on the cover of the New Yorker showing Barack and Michelle Obama -- dressed respectively as a Muslim and a gun-toting terrorist -- performing what rightwing commentators have called a "terrorist fist jab" while merrily burning an American flag in the fireplace of an Oval Office decorated with a portrait of Osama bin Laden.
The magazine arrived on newsstands today. But the editor, David Remnick, evidently anticipating a liberal backlash against a cover described today as incendiary and irresponsible, gave an interview to the Washington Post ahead of publication, saying the image was meant to be seen as humour, poking fun at the smear campaign against the Obamas.
"It's clearly a joke, a parody of these crazy fears and rumours and scare tactics about Obama's past and ideology," Remnick told the Post. "And if you can't tell it's a joke by the flag burning in the Oval Office, I don't know what more to say."
The accompanying cover story does not discuss the internet smear campaign which has portrayed the Democratic candidate as a radical Muslim, but traces Obama's rise through Chicago politics in the 1990s.
The satire was evidently lost on Obama's campaign and on his opponent, the Republican, John McCain. Both condemned the cartoon.
"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 rightwing critics have tried to create," the campaign said in a statement.
"But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."
Remnick, at least initially, defended the use of the cartoon and in an exchange with the Huffington Post denied trying to attract attention by deliberately courting controversy.
He also claimed New Yorker readers would be able to discern that the cartoon was meant as satire.
"I wouldn't have run a cover just to get attention," he said. "The idea that we would publish a cover saying these things literally, I think, is just not in the vocabulary of what we do and who we are."
About this article
Close
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Monday July 14 2008. It was last updated at 18:25 on July 14 2008.
