Oh, please…: New Yorker Obama cover

The upcoming New Yorker cover and its consequent fallout is a shame. I would totally expect the reaction that the Obama campaign is having from a conservative candidate in his shoes. After all, they have done all that they can to discredit the “liberal media” (i.e. media not controlled by conservative owners and organizations) over the last decade or so, so much so that people are not sure what is real information and what is purely myth, as attested to by the purely-myth, conservative mass email that was forwarded to me today about all of the ways the Democratic party has screwed the American people over Social Security over the last few years.

Whereas I may agree with bloggers like the one from the Guardian UK that the cover is not all that funny, that it indeed misses the mark by not being absurd enough – largely because the allegations it portrays are too absurd as it is, I do not agree that there needs to be the adverse reaction from both the McCain and Obama campaigns. In fact, there really needs to be very little reaction at all.
As an Obama supporter, the cover does not bother me in the least as it has so many others. It may be in bad taste, but not because it is portraying Obama or issues that have surrounded the presidential race. It is in bad taste in the traditional sense. It’s not funny, which is what it ostensibly is supposed to be, and it does not cast any additional light or provide a new perspective about the absurd allegations that have been made about the Obamas. It’s much like what passes for political satire on Saturday Night Live these days: a feeble attempt that generally doesn’t go far enough in its efforts, creativity and thought, but goes on way to far in it’s elapsed time. This is a static magazine cover that has no length of time other than the amount of time the campaigns can keep it in the news cycle. I can see a win in keeping it in the news for the McCain campaign, because surely outlets like Fox News and the conservative talks shows and bloggers will be able to have a heyday with it, keeping those same folks that believe every mass email that comes into their inbox confused about whether Obama is a muslim or not. However, it doesn’t look like the McCain campaign will have to make an effort to keep it in the news cycle, Obama is taking care of that himself. I would hope for more. The campaign should have taken the high road on this one.