Letters, We Got Letters

Almost as amusing as the New Yorker’s Obama cover last week are the (unintentionally) amusing letters the magazine received in response. First up is Rusel DeMaria of Grants Pass, Oregon. While calling the cover “inartful,” he scolds the magazine because Blitt’s illustration provides ammunition to further the very thing that it satirizes, and that is potentially very damaging to a worthy candidate. If you want to illustrate the politics of fear, then use something that really describes it: those who are the real fearmongers—not the victims of their atrocious lies. Far be it from me to tell the New Yorker editors what their purposes ought be as journalists and cultural critics, but last time I checked, trying to help the political prospects of a “worthy candidate” were not (at least ostensibly) among them. That a magazine ought... [read full story]