This week's The New Yorker, a leader of highbrow social and political commentary, won't be remembered for Ryan Lizza's article on Sen. Barack Obama's political upbringing on the south side of Chicago.
The magazine's cover shows Obama and his wife as radicals pounding fists in solidarity. The scene is the Oval Office with a portrait of Osama Bin Laden above a smoldering American flag.
The intention was to ridicule efforts by the far right to caricature the Obamas as insurgents to cherished American values.
Despite it's clear purpose, the cover ignited a media frenzy.
Granted, the best satire aims to deride an attitude or behavior exhibited by a larger subset and only a thin swatch of the population actually believes that Michelle hates America or that Barack has ties to Al Qaeda, but it doesn't mean that swatch doesn't exist.
In February, a press operator at a small newspaper in Kansas wrote a column in which he called Obama a Muslim fundamentalist. He went on to compare voting for Obama, being of Muslim origins
to spitting on the graves of 9/11 victims.
Despite no proof Obama has ever been a practicing Muslim, that column was printed for all to see.
That alone shows there are people who believe the absurd scene portrayed by The New Yorker. And the best way to cast that belief as absurd is to paint it as absurdly as possible ' just like The New Yorker did.
By it's very nature, satire should make people uncomfortable. It's a mirror of the attitudes or habits of the society it criticizes, and people often don't like the reflection staring back.
Even worse, recent reports that the Obama campaign barred a New Yorker reporter from an overseas trip ensured the topic would never be laid to rest.
The campaign received 200 requests from the press to travel with Obama and most major foreign correspondents nabbed a seat, but the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza was told there was no space.
Although the campaign would never admit to it, the space constraints excuse looks suspiciously like revenge.
This act of vengeance serves only to rob the press of its vitality ' it can't work under the nagging fear of retribution.
If the Obama campaign is hoping to open a dialogue on race in America, then their actions over the last week show it doesn't feel America is ready.
Hopefully we're wrong.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of the executive editors.
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