99 percent of the voters in this country never see the New Yorker.  If they happen to pass by the magazine rack in their local Safeway or Borders, the New Yorker is one of a hundred mags featured, 90% of which have their covers  covered by other magazines. In many small towns, you probably have to do a dedicated search to find the New Yorker displayed anywhere, other than in the hands of subscribers, who are sophisticated enough to figure it out. Relatively speaking this is a very small circulation mag. It may seem everywhere in Manhattan, but the good folk of Muscle Shoals Alabama are not being assaulted by this cover.

If it is sold at all, the New Yorker is grouped with other political/literary magazines that the rubes who might actually confuse the cartoon on the cover with fact never browse in a million years. And if they are even in Banes & Noble or Borders, they are not stupid enough to be confused by this cover. If they are in a Super Market, they are looking for "Okay!" not the New Yorker.  The National Enquirer, The Star, and People are in the checkout line, not the New Yorker.

This "controversy" is entirely an invention of inside the beltway wonks, bloggers and and Cable TV  taking head idiots who see it as a chance to peddle fake outrage and concern. And, of course, it's an opportunity for McCain and the Right to attack a mag that has regularly exposed their folly. (Thank God for Seymour Hirsch!).  The Left should be defending the New Yorker against these ridiculous attacks.

If anything, this is brouhaha is an Obama Bot Detector, serving to identify hysterical, humorless, knee jerk Obama supporters who panic at anything that is remotely seen as a threat to their guy.  (It's sad that Jonathan Altair has come to that.)  This is the kind of "better safe than sorry" thinking that has fueled Obama's cave-in on the FISA bill and the shameful disowning of Wes Clark.The cure is killing the patient. Barack's response to this mag cover plays right into SNLs portrayal of him as humorless and distant.

People -- it is a satirical cartoon that attacks the excesses of the right. The Cretans who don't get it won't ever see it. (News flash, only a tiny percentage of Americans watch cable news.)

Obama Bots: "Get a life!" 

Barack --"Loosen up. You should laugh - it's not tragic!"