Jonathan Swift would be laughing. And that’s what matters.
The godfather of satirists everywhere would be pleased to see that a drawing of the Obamas has captured such media attention.
That everyone is arguing whether this image is offensive is the point of the satirist. His job is done. People are talking and debating. Even if they’re missing the point, the discussion has begun due to the satirical treatment of the issue.
The issue? The wrongheaded view that Obama and his wife are fist-bumping terrorist Muslims.
Of course, it’s wrong, and the cartoon makes fun of that and exposes that folly. It doesn’t reinforce the notion that the Obamas are card-carrying terrorists. If it does that in your mind, then you must really believe Homer Simpson exists as a nuclear engineer in some town named Springfield. Or that Tom Ammiano is the tooth fairy.
But everyone is up in arms over this cartoon. The Obama-ites. The McCainines. The misreading of the cartoon by both sides shows a real bi-partisan political correctness. They’re just using the cover as cover.
The McCanines dont’ want their guy to look like he’s a racist who buys into the “Obama as Muslim” thing as total B.S.
Obama folks don’t like anything that even brings up any race issue because they’d rather avoid controversy.
Now the black surrogates of Obama are on the attack, along with the conservatives, in an odd alliance against the New Yorker. That’s strange because the New Yorker has done a good job at exposing something no one wants to talk about, this odd racist public perception that Obama is Muslim.
By bringing up the issue in this way, like the open sore everyone wants to ignore, perhaps people will see the absurdity of the charge. Then the next time some non-cartoon character on talk radio or in real life makes a reference to Obama as a Muslim, people will see it for the ridiculousness that it is.
That’s where the real punchline is.