My Mental Recession

Another bone-headed decision by the limping Presidential campaign of mercurial Republican Senator John McCain: why distance yourself from Phil Gramm when the man is so obviously right? We are immersed in a "mental recession," and I should know. Ever since Obama clinched and darted immediately toward the center of the fish tank, crowding those colorful clown fishes next to the bubbly deep-sea diver - pretty damned near the purpley  Lieberman coral - I've felt a deep political malaise settling in. The tank grows cloudy on me.

Yes, I know that's Jimmy Carter's moment of depressed descriptive for a bit of a national slump, but damned if the GOP Doctor Phil (good one, Barack!) didn't top it.  "Mental recession," indeed...it paints a vivid word picture of retreating American brains, like a Ramones song. The mental economists define a mental recession as two straight quarters in which the GMP (gross mental product) declines. [As an aside,  I just love the word "mental" if you can't tell; it's just so darned "old guy."]

Then there are the mental culture critics.  No, not the late-80s L.A. speed metal band. No, I mean the twisted sisters of taste, the wild-eyed decriers of New Yorker magazine covers. Every paragon of old media righteousness and his blogging brotha is flogging the magazine's bit of rather clever satire (drawn by cartoonist Barry Blitt). And the Obama campaign is upset; its designated spokesman-for-outrage Bill Burton called the cover “tasteless and offensive.” Even McCain agreed.

Silly me. I thought that well-executed absurdity in literature or art helped to illuminate the foolishness of its subject; by portraying the Obamas as a fist-bumping duo of terrorists, one Islamic and the other 70s era Black Panther, in the Oval Office, the New Yorker image renders the actual calumnies laughable. Foolish. The wispy products of goofballs and lunatics. Totally mental.

Here's another thought: George Carlin's been dead just two weeks and suddenly a piece of mainstream political satire that wouldn't have turned a single lefty head in outrage 25 years ago is suddenly branded obscene, beyond the pale.

Now, we're visited with the specter of feuding cartoonists and critics. "Not particularly well-drawn or interesting," sniffed Stephen Hess at Brookings. Rrrrrrrr! Cartoonist fight!

Nick Anderson, president of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, lambasted the  cover. “There is a constant and natural tension in the creation of satire,” Anderson told Politico. “The delicate art of satire is suffocated by heavy-handed elucidation. But, if the satirist fails to make the point clearly enough, the whole enterprise backfires in unintended misinterpretation.”

"Heavy-handed elucidation?" Well, the point is pretty clear to me. The cover is worth a laugh or two, a moment of thought perhaps, and is perfectly laudable in the context of an artist examining our current national political context. It would have passed largely unnoticed by anyone but the magazine's stuffy readership (like me!) if Obama and his chorus of supporters hadn't cried foul. Besides, as editor David Remnick said: "What I think it does is hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about Barack Obama's — both Obamas' — past, and their politics...The idea that we would publish a cover saying these things literally, I think, is just not in the vocabulary of what we do and who we are... We've run many many satirical political covers. Ask the Bush administration how many."

Well, exactly. Or as Gawker so delicately put it: "Remnick Defends Obama Cover, Idea That Readers Aren't Retards."

Or mental. As the case may be.

UPDATE: Jon Swift: "There is not much the members of the liberal blogosphere and I agree on but I salute them on their efforts to stamp out humor and especially satire and bring more earnestness to our political discourse." Hee hee. Also, Hitchens and Gary Kamiya.

Comments

[Dan]

Great post. Let me see -- during the primary, the Obama campaign blasts Democratic icon and noted civil rights proponent Bill Clinton and main rival Hillary Clinton as racist in order to play victim. Now, during the Presidential campaign, the liberal periodical The New Yorker, which has offered some of the fluffiest campaign coverage of Obama's campaign anywhere (Rick Hertzberg, anyone?), gets labeled racist when it publishes a not-entirely-flattering article about Obama's Chicago roots.

Watch your back, Jane Fonda. You could be next.

[tdraicer]

A cartoon of Obama tearing up the 4th Amendment would have been more to the point.

[Jon Swift]

We need a lot less satire, which just confuses people when we need to be steeled to fight the terrorists, and a lot more earnestness, which is in woefully short supply, especially in the blogosphere. I don't know if your piece was also intended to be satire (which is the problem with satire and why it should come with warning labels) but I do know it doesn't help and anything that doesn't help just gives aide and comfort to our enemies.

[Tom K]

*Remnick Defends Obama Cover, Idea That Readers Aren't Retards.*

It is an outrage to deny the very existence of those brave members of the mentally challenged community who have worked so hard to join the ranks of the New Yorker's readership.

It goes on from there, if someone doesn't stop the madness. BHO -- the folks at the New Yorker are your friends. A big part of your appeal, frankly, likes in your ability to talk about race without making white people too uncomfortable. Taking umbrage at this sort of thing undermines your appeal. And (to beat my favorite dead horse) HRC is still out there, and August is still a long way off . . .

[yonodeler]

I can't say that anything is categorically off limits for satire, but it is possible to go beyond responsibility and good sense. With caricature of physical characteristics and style of dress, when there is a racial or ethnic aspect in the minds of readers, an artist's work may become similar to flagrantly prejudicial artistic renderings of the past, even when the artist's intention is to lampoon bigotry. In the magazine cover's images of the Obamas, check out Barack Obama's nose, lips, and pigmentation (“oreo”?), and check out Michelle Obama's hair, which is done as an afro but would be “nappy” to many observers.

[Dan]

Yonodeler, you are making the point perfectly. The more "ugga booga" (pardon the expression) the characterization, the more biting the satire. That's what is being satirized - the racism/fear-mongering that has been leveled at the Obamas. It would be a very difficult proposition to lampoon bigotry without, you know, showing bigotry.

And if you don't see the difference between John McClaughlin using the term "oreo" in all earnestness and the New Yorker using an exaggerated image on a magazine cover, it does not surprise me that that nuance of the satire is beyond your ken. It's the New Yorker, for God's sake - home of satirical cartoons since, oh, forEVER!

Responsibility and good sense? Eye of the beholder.

[mrmobi]

Well kids, I'm going to have to vote no on the NYM cover. No hysteria. Just a note of caution, given that 12% or more of Americans apparently still believe that Obama is a secret Muslim. That said, why would the Obama campaign be happy about that cover sitting on news stands? Couple that with hate sites like "No Quarter," and the media still seems to be doing its' job of keeping this election close, even if, as it increasingly seems, it is not.

On a happier note, the article inside is pretty great. Obama is shown to be a savvy inside political player, and extremely ambitious, which I always knew he was (he's from Chicago, where the weak are killed and eaten!).

It's kind of like when Lincoln was running for President, and all his rivals underestimated him because of his lack of experience and education. By the time of the convention, they had all been thoroughly out-maneuvered.

We worship an awesome God in Illinois, and we're not bad at politics either.

...the Obama campaign blasts Democratic icon and noted civil rights proponent Bill Clinton and main rival Hillary Clinton as racist in order to play victim.

Nice try, Dan, but the only "blasting" going on during the primary was Bubbah shooting himself (and his wife's campaign) in the foot. I love Bill, but he became a real gasbag during the primary. Hillary did a lot better after they shut him up.

[Jesus X. Crutch]

All this pearl clutching comes hard on the heels of another misogynic blast at one of Obama's events by funnyman Bernie Mac, ouch, Barry's always having this problem with the loose cannons he associates himself with, another fire to put out and still feeling the heat from going back on his "purity pledge" at the FISA vote. Oh what to do? Then, like a gift from the gods, the New Yorker presents a race card op, just like that...redirected outrage, flog it, flog it good.

[jb64]

I thought the cover was pretty funny. Incredibly over the top, yet, thorough in exposing all the crazy narratives about Obama in a single panel. McCain, the intended target, denounced the cartoon, which should have been a win for Obama, but the campaign (perhaps still locked in primary "outrage of the day" mode)leapt to denounce it first, thereby losing any advantage that that McCain's disassociation might have given it.

And it's only July.

[yonodeler]

@Ken

If you consider my pointing out caricature of physical characteristics to be evidence that I missed satirical nuance, or if you consider an artist and a magazine to be above criticism because they practice and have long practiced satire, you shouldn't lecture me and my ken on point-making and nuance-missing.

I won't get scolded into leaping to the conclusion that Blitt—whose conduct in the matter, along with Remnick's, I do not consider racist—was using caricatural exaggerations of physical characteristics in the effort to capture a bigot's mind's-eye physical images of the Obamas. If he was, he's even more reckless than I now consider him.

[yonodeler]

I erred in directing my last comment at “Ken” when I meant it to be directed at Dan. I apologize.

[gormenghast]

I have looked everywhere to no avail. Does anyone know where I can buy frozen Irish babies? I have guests coming for a Sunday roast and I am afraid I will not be able to get the babies defrosted in time. What's that you say? "Modest Proposal" is NOT a cookbook?

[Dan]

Yonodeler, I guess I just fail to see how caricature of physical characteristics, which is a staple of cartooning, is somehow off-limits in an image that is satirizing the "scary-blackness" of the Obamas.

Mrmobi, I'm not sure what you were watching during the primary, but if that was the only blasting you saw (and I don't entirely disagree with your point, especially the last point about her doing better with Bill in the background), then you were paying mighty selective attention.

[Dave2]

Since when did Twisted Sister play speed metal?