Contrasting New Yorker Caricatures

None of the New Yorker covers below are particular satirical.

Because they constitute charicatures that try to drive home a certain truth by exaggeration, no one should be surprised at the anger of the Obamas.

If the cartoonist had drawn the Obama cover as an overhead slide in a lecture given by someone looking suspiciously like Robert Spencer, Martin Peretz, Daniel Pipes, David Horowitz, John Hagee, James Dobson or some other ideological scare-monger, the cartoon might have served as clear satire, but the effort would have been tricky.

Dobson might have worked best if the cover had been captioned with the Dobson figuring blithely stating, "So what if I distort the facts? Obama distorts the Bible," but it would have been old news, and I am not sure it would have worked.

Barack might benefit from The New Yorker cover if the controversy proves sufficiently cathartic to drive this nonsense out of the consciousness of the American body politic before September.

Michelle as Angela Davis; Barack as Muslim cleric

George W. Bush as Nero

The Real Boss

George W. Bush as Cowboy with Blinders

Cheney as an Incendiary Device

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