Satire Is Dead. Long Live Satire
I think this post in Salon.com by Gary Kamiya is right--a lot of liberals HAVE lost their sense of humor. Was the controversial New Yorker cover politically incorrect? Absolutely. Was it funny? Not particularly. But is it racist? Absolutely not. And more importantly, it IS satire, albeit a particularly toothless and pointless brand of satire. Let's face it...a lot of right wing bloggers (and more subtly and insidiously Fox News) have been making feckless puns on Barack Obama's name and bringing up harmless, irrelevant incidents from his past--like his long-ago friendship with a former member of the Black Panthers--to try and play both the race card and the "is Barack Obama a secret terrorist sympathizer?" card. The New Yorker is making fun of that fact and pointing out just how ridiculous it is. It might be a bit broad and dumb for as highbrow a periodical as The New Yorker, but let's not make a jihad out of a jest.
Coming later this week, a look at the baseball season after the All-Star game, a review of THE DARK KNIGHT and more.
Peace.
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