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Irony did NOT die on Sept 11...

By Michael J. Smith on Tuesday July 15, 2008 10:11 PM

... thank God.

The New Yorker magazine doesn't have much going for it except irony. But bless 'em, they've clung to that.

The Obama base went berserk about this image. My favorite response, though, came from a guy who has never before positioned himself as an Obamaniac, namely ABC's Jake Tapper, with his perennial dyspeptic scowl:

Obama Camp Hammers New 'Ironic' New Yorker Cover...

The sophisticates at The New Yorker have come up with a cover that is sure to get the magazine a lot of attention....

Said Obama [flack] Bill Burton: "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."

....[N]o Upper East Side liberal -- no matter how superior they feel their intellect is -- should assume that just because they're mocking such ridiculousness, the illustration won't feed into the same beast.... It's a recruitment poster for the right-wing....

But I would assume over at the Conde Nast building, they think it's droll.

Does poor Jake live in DC(*)? If so, his fury is to some extent understandable, as is his ignorance of social geography (hint: the liberals live on the West side, Jake).

There's something very Nixonian about Jake's frothing here -- it reminds me of that David Frost interview with the great man, where he ruminates abut New York "trendies" and generously observes that he no longer tries to "stir 'em up."

But the interesting question is: Why is Jake so angry? He doesn't seem to be an Obamaniac -- rather the reverse, if anything.

Hypothesis: It's because, for him, the New Yorker cover's subtext is, We don't give a shit -- we're above it all -- we don't really care whose chances we enhance or diminish.

Jake can make a living tracking the dreary minutiae of the campaign, because people really have to care in order to read his stuff with close attention every day. Nobody likes to have his trade mocked.

I don't live on the East Side, and I've never been in the Conde Nast building. I seldom read the New Yorker, except for the cartoons. But I'm with 'em on this one. Anybody with any self-respect ought to be above it all; and nobody with a grain of sense should give a shit.

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(*) I was born there, actually, so I can say these things.

Comments (1)

Dude.

I can't believe you're being sucked into the mindless media pissfight over this, yet one more steaming load of inanity heaped on top of an already-legendary steaming heap of inanity that's been piling up ever since that legendary night at one of the "debates" when a CNN plant stood up and asked Hillary, "Which do you prefer: diamonds or pearls?"

Actually, I'm quite amazed at the turn some of the New Yorker's cover cartoons have taken. It's certainly light-years edgier than Barsotti or Roz Chast. Is there an artist credit? The style does look vaguely familiar.

I think it's a damned awesome cover, and it's starting to make me wonder if I might actually have a chance of selling some stuff to the New Yorker. Y'think they'd buy Decision 2008? The Fallujah Minuteman?

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