Obama's Pissed

Now, I could see why someone would be pissed about such a picture.  It would paint me in an unfair light.  The New Yorker claims it's satire:

New Yorker editor David Remnick seemed shocked by the backlash.

"Our cover ... combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are," he said in a statement.

"The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall - all of them echo one attack or another. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to the absurd. And that's the spirit of this cover," Remnick said.

Of course, he's "shocked".  How could he NOT know that this would create publicity?

But here's where the New Yorker finds a diamond in the rough:

One insight into the transition that Obama was making during the short period between his painful loss to Bobby Rush and his Senate victory can be gained by comparing his reactions to the two major national-security crises of the time: the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the Iraq war. For many Illinois state legislators, September 11th was not an event that required much response. The attacks occurred just before an important deadline in the redistricting process. John Corrigan, the Democratic consultant in charge of redistricting, told me that he spent September 12th talking to many legislators, Obama not among them. “It was like nothing had happened,” he said. “Everybody came in and all they cared about was their districts. It wasn’t any one particular legislator from any one particular community. I learned a lot about state government. Their job was not to respond to September 11th. They were more worried about making sure that they had a district that they could run in for reëlection.”

Obama’s response to the event was published on September 19th in the Hyde Park Herald:

Even as I hope for some measure of peace and comfort to the bereaved families, I must also hope that we as a nation draw some measure of wisdom from this tragedy. Certain immediate lessons are clear, and we must act upon those lessons decisively. We need to step up security at our airports. We must reexamine the effectiveness of our intelligence networks. And we must be resolute in identifying the perpetrators of these heinous acts and dismantling their organizations of destruction.
We must also engage, however, in the more difficult task of understanding the sources of such madness. The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers: an inability to imagine, or connect with, the humanity and suffering of others. Such a failure of empathy, such numbness to the pain of a child or the desperation of a parent, is not innate; nor, history tells us, is it unique to a particular culture, religion, or ethnicity. It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair.

That's right.  He claims that 9/11 attacks were grown out of a climate of "poverty, ignorance, helplessness, and despair".

Nevermind that Osama came from an extremely wealthy family.  Nevermind that Mohammed Atta was a highly educated architect, or that all of the hijackers lead relatively good lives.

No, we must make it a crusade of "let's fork over money and 'understanding'" towards people who murdered 3,000 of your countrymen.

He's making excuses for the 9/11 attackers against his own people.  Civilians, who's only crime was they went to work, got on a plane, or were nearby that day.

So, guess what?  You get to be depicted that way, regardless of if you're a Muslim or not, satire or not.

When you try to justify attacks against civilians, you're no better then them.

 

Travis

travis@rightwinglunatic.com