NewsBusted: Lessons Learned From the Right-Wing Response to the Obama New Yorker Cover

Do you think McCain's time spent in Hanoi Hilton is fair game for McCain bashers? (Remember that is a Karl Rovian tactic). The McCain cartoon is in my estimation no less offensive than the Obama one.

I thought the New Yorker cover was a brilliant bit of satire, but I find the cartoon from Rolling Stone to be tacky and tasteless, as it makes light of the horrible suffering McCain and other POWs experienced.

Killfile, this response to the Newsbusters seed disappoints me. I've respected your opinion as a damn-near-professional amateur journalist even if it more than occasionally differs from mine, but this article is the most disingenuous I have seen from you.

Your response relies on playing down the offense of the Rolling Stone cartoon because it does not "lend legitimacy" to the "bigoted and ignorant fringe" as the New Yorker cover does. Correct, it may not do that. But this is nothing but an underhanded dodge from the real point:

* The New Yorker cover is offensive because it poorly makes fun of ignorant, incorrect portrayals of Obama.
* The Rolling Stone image is offensive because it poignantly makes a mockery of McCain's traumatic real-life experiences.

But I guess believing that both are offensive and making this post to suggest that the Rolling Stone image warrants even a bit of criticism, given the amount of outcry over the New Yorker cover, as did the columnist, risks marking myself as a desperate ideological zealot, and putting myself in the same boat as those who portray Obama as a Bin-Laden-worshipping Muslim married to a radical terrorist in order to win the elction.

Meh, people need to find a sense of humor.

Raising McCain's POW capture at the Hands of the Vietnames almost forty years on is bad taste & should not in my view been used in a cartoon...

I could care less about either one. God only knows what the blogosphere would have made of these two had they been around in the 19th century. This is what passes for news in the political silly season. I wonder how many people actually took the time to read Ryan Lizza's excellent article which lay beneath the New Yorker cover? I'll wager not many.

I have a book of Currier and Ives prints and they were no less offensive during the civil and post-civil war and have some really nasty pictorials of the Republicans deciding to throw black people out of a boat during elections in post-civil war era.

We all like to think that tastelessness and offensiveness is a new phenomenon, but seriously folks, we ARE tasteless and offensive.

Here's the difference for me.

New Yorker: A brilliant hyperbole of the net-and-beyond rumour mill that aims to make you scared of Obama. It only doesn't work out of context of the New Yorker.

Rolling Stone: WTF? Seriously, that dude on the left is supposed to be Obama? Looks more like Tiger Woods to me. Dubya and Hillary are almost as hard to identify. And what exactly is the cartoon saying? That McCain is trying to liken his opponents to his captors? There's Bush! That's just stupid. That the trio is torturing him? What does that even mean? I mean, if they had depicted McCain behind the Presidential seal with bamboo shoots under his fingernails while everyone oohs and ahs, you're poking fun at people who think he's running on his stay in the Hanoi Hilton, as well as people who think that's a valid prerequisite to the Oval Office. But that his Obama, Bush, and Clinton are drawn as Vietnamese torturers, for me, makes the cartoon fall flat on its failure of a face. Who around here knows what it's trying to say? I'd seriously like to figure it out.

SHEdit
Hey, look what I found up yonder from Killfile.

I see it as using McCain's experiences in Vietnam to satarize the obsticles he now faces. As the cartoon reminds us, this is a man who withstood years of brutal imprisonment and torture at the hands of some of the most depraved individuals in the world. Sure, his campaign is taking some body blows from Obama, Clinton, and Bush (unintentionally I think)... but he'll be ok. He's survived worse.

If that's the case, it's a silly cartoon at best, and rather pointless. Of course McCain will survive attacks from the Left and being guilty-by-association with Bush. What's the point of that statement?

I believe both cartoons are offensive. I find it disconcerting that partisan bias can reach so deep as to remove the ability to see how offensive both of these cartoons actually are.

Meh, political cartoons are meant to be offensive. I think the dustup over the New Yorker cover was overblown, and this response by Newsbusters is just lame.

I took both to be satire, I heard the New Yorker editor say it was satire. doesn't seem unreasonable. I'm not a fan of "meta" conversations that the media decide to start. Even if it wasn't satire, who cares, I see so many offensive, backwards opinions a day that I can rarely get upset about it. Just ignore it, don't buy the New Yorker. They're only dining on the publicity they're getting anyway. Stop whining about being offended... I just don't care.

My great grandmother was from Malaca,some spell Malaka. My great grandfather was from Maraco. I had ancesters who were muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Budist. I try very hard not to insult anyone, as I would insult all my ancestors. We are all of the human race. I am a Vietnam veteran. yes there is some offence on both cartoons. But to believe there is any reality to those alegations is to show a bit of ignorance!!! Prejudice comes about out of ignorance!!

That picture of McCain is really offensive, and pretty unrealistic. I don't see any blood. Hmmmm. I can't believe they would mock his service. If it weren't for John McCain, you'd all be speaking Vietnameese right now and feeding your kids rice and dog leg.

The picture of Obama is hilarious and accurate. How can it be offensive to portray a Muslim and his husband, errrr wife, as Muslims? Who knows if they are technically terrorists, but they are Muslims 100%. Good call by the New Yorker. I'm glad to finally see a conservative magazine get some air-time.

MY COUNTRY 'TIS OF THEE!!!!!!

Both The New Yorker and Rolling Stone Magazine are the same, equally worthless.

Rolling Stone was right on target. McCain has and will continue to be tortured by
the stench of the Bush administration. In parallel,he'll continue to be tortured by the astonishing
rise in popularity of America's latest savior. The New Yorker did have the Obama's
fist bumpin in the Oval office. This will most likely eventuate. One can only hope for a wardrobe
change. However many people only capture and retain a visual image with no thought on the
intent.

Frankly, as a self-labeled liberal, I can't say I find either cartoon especially funny, and both strike me as being in bad taste, even if "racism" isn't the central term I would use. The Rolling Stone cartoon lacks the self-satisfied hipster irony that, in its misinterpretation, made the New Yorker cover so explosive. It makes up for it, however, by trivializing torture. While I do think humor is important, I would hardly call McCain's shift from "media darling" to "runner up for prom king" torturous. Maybe it's just that I don't think McCain's torture, or the torture US detainees, is funny.

I'm not outraged by either cover, any more than I am outraged about the shoddy comedic stylings of Carlos Mencia: you can get laughs from some people by playing the race card (even ironically), just as they can get laughs making jokes about rape, torture, or murder. But it shouldn't surprise anyone when those same jokes cause offense. "I know it's offensive: that's the point" is an intelligent response to such reactions. "Get over it, you hypersensitive zealot" is not. Bridging the ideological gaps in this country isn't just about deconstructing the things that make Americans angry: it's also about respecting the views of others and trying to start a dialog about why some of us hold some things sacred while declaring open season on others.

Informative story. And the debate continues.

Neither cartoon is offensive, unless you are on a mission to be offended (which some of you are, it's a disease in America)

They are both funny.

VeggieTales, now THAT'S an offensive cartoon. I don't want my kids thinking their vegetables worship God, WTF is that???

The Obama cartoon played too close to stereotypes which have as yet been completly,for lack of a better word, destroyed. There is not yet a general consenseous of who Obama is.

The McCain cartoon is just plain dumb. Comparing real torture to anything he is withstanding now is ridiculous. Bringing up his war record---I don't think so. Maybe as a captured bear being pricked by humans around him to indicate his ability? to withstand a barrage of items from various sources.

yeah-- i dont think either of these cartoons are appropriate.

Aren't political cartoons (i.e. satire) supposed to be offensive or 'over the top' in order to get a point across? [Why doesn't the country get outraged when they make george w bush look like a monkey?] I think they're offensive, but I also think they are purposely offensive in order to exaggerate or accentuate certain things, and it just so happened that a lot of people noticed the New Yorker cartoon.