The New Yorker controversy has past its half-life. So what’s the verdict?
Has the jarring image amplified the smears it intended to satirize? Has it helped the Rovian forces win a news cycle? Has it reinforced the doubts of skittish swing voters?
I don’t think so.
I work at home and watch more cable news than I should. It’s true that CNN’s camera caressed the cartoon like a teenage boy gazing at his first porn mag. But the pundits portrayed the controversy as a battle between the literary snobs and the humor police. The coverage had a conservative bias, but only insofar as it framed Obama supporters (both the magazine and its critics) as an annoying "liberal elite" subject to internecine pie fights. At worst, the controversy raised fears that an Obama administration might bring back the tedious PC wars of the early 90s.
While it may have done some bit of harm in this area, I also think that the cover succeeded – beyond Barry Blitt’s wildest dreams – in exposing the anti-Obama smears to the light of mainstream disapproval. Even the pundits who made such prurient use of the image had to do so while explicitly disavowing the entire bigoted worldview that the cover illustrates. The reaction to the New Yorker cover helped reinforce anti-Obama smears about as much as the Spitzer feeding frenzy helped legitimize prostitution.
Obama himself provided the best vindication of the cover on Larry King’s show, even as he dismissed it as weak satire.
KING: Considering that, though, there's a lot of e-mails going around. It gets rather terrible. A "Newsweek" poll shows that 12 percent of America believes that you're a Muslim, and 26 believe -- 26 percent believe you were raised in a Muslim home. A lot of misinformation.
How do you fight that?
OBAMA: Well, you know, by getting on "Larry King" and telling everybody I'm a Christian and I wasn't raised in a Muslim home. And pledge allegiance to the flag. And, you know, all the things that have been reported in these e-mails are completely untrue and have been debunked again and again and again. So, all you can do is just tell the truth and trust in the American people that over time, they're going to know what the truth is.
This was Obama’s most successful response to the smears yet. Not only did he address the issue with conviction and aplomb, he did so with the full support and blessing of Larry King – the media star closest in political point of view (ie shallow, conventional, reactive) to swing voters. When King brands something as "misinformation," it is officially beyond the bounds of respectable opinion.
It’s not at all clear this opportunity would have arisen without the New Yorker’s assist.
I only wish a critique of the Swift Boat lies had received such wide attention back in 04.