If The New Yorker doesn't want Obama to get elected, it's done a bang-up job with its new cover. Of course subscribers to the New Yorker will appreciate it's ironic humor. Barack is a closet Muslim and Michelle is a closet terrorist! Ha-ha! Aren't the people who believe such things koo-koo?! But they have no idea how irony-deficient the broader culture is, or how irony gets lost outside of context. As Larison observes:
In an era of instant, mass communication, the image will be, indeed already has been, circulated widely and will gradually lose whatever "ironic" edge it once had. That the image derived from a New Yorker cover and was intended for an audience of high-information, predominantly left-leaning voters who already support Obama will be irrelevant or will add to the "credibility" of what the image conveys. Then the word will go forth in forwarded emails everywhere: "Even The New Yorker thinks Obama is a secret Muslim, etc..."
I think that's exactly right. The New Yorker people, I'm guessing, don't understand how powerful the Obama-as-closet-Muslim meme is. I run into it all the time. And just try to pry people who believe this stuff away from that idea. You can't do it. It is unfalsifiable. As one of Andrew Sullivan's correspondents put it:
Limbaugh will be saying "Well look, these liberals can make drawing like this and we call it harmless satire, so why did they give me so much grief when I played the song Obama the Magic Negro on my show. It's liberal hypocrisy I tell you!".
The thing is, the joke isn't all that funny. If you're going to run this kind of risk, at least be amusing.
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I can't help but think that if Mark Twain were alive today, he would have written a short story to go along with this picture.
"The mere *possibility* of intelligent and ideas-based criticism and even rejection of Barack Obama doesn't appear to have crossed their provincial minds, does it?"
The problem is, out in the hustings so to speak, there are a number of folks who take the Obama-is-a-Muslim issue as a serious issue. I've spoken with a number of them, both Democrat and Republican, who are absolutely convinced that he has forged his birth certificate and is hiding his involvement with Muslim schools in his youth. To them his denials simply confirm their suspicions...after all, why would he be SO INTENSE in his denials if there wasn't something to it.
Polling by several agencies consistently show that 10-15% of those polled believe that Obama is a Muslim. And when pinned down these folks respond very much like Mel has here on this blog: well, you can't REALLY know what is in his heart.
You state that people can show baptismal certificates, church membership records, etc. Yet for many evangelicals these pieces of paper do not signify a saving knowledge of Jesus. That is something that only happens in the heart of the believer. A baptismal certificate does not a Christian make, any more than a Midrassa report card makes one a Muslim.
I agree there are many who forward these e-mails more out of the spirit of "I knew he was bad" than "boy, have you seen this". But if you consider that the issue that the FCC still receives the most e-mails and letters about is the effort by Madelyn Murray O'Hare to ban religious broadcasters from the airwaves...in spite of the fact that there never was such an effort according to the FCC and that Ms. O'Hare has been dead for years. People still believe the myth, and still pass it on as genuine...even when confronted with the truth.
There are intelligent and meaningful reasons to oppose Obama, just as there are with any candidate. But for many the Muslim issue remains one of their biggest problems with Barack Obama (and let's not forget his middle name is Hussein).
It's sad how deeply rooted such lies can become.
"Even so, I can't think of another election in which a major presidential candidate has had to so thoroughly disown his prior positions (and associations) in order to appear 'mainstream.' Honestly, at this point, I have absolutely no idea where the guy stands on much of anything."
I would suggest that your memory is very short, or very selective. Mitt Romney completely remade himself in order to run for President in the GOP primaries. He flipped on issues far more often than Obama has, from abortion to immigration to prayer in the schools, taxes and foreign policy. And then there is John Kerry, George W. Bush, and John McCain, all three legendary wafflers. (If you compare McCain's positions in 2000 to his positions today you find that there are significant changes in almost every area).
I also wonder...if you are familiar with the views of Muslims concerning Obama, why aren't you spending as much time learning about Obama directly? Surely you want to make a decision based on accurate information and not something filtered through secondary (and un-American) sources?
"My point was simply to comment on the fact that there's a very nativist undercurrent of "our team" vs. "their team" surrounding Obama, and that the perceptions of many in the islamic world help feed into that undercurrent."
That undercurrent has also been present during the administration of the current and immediately former President. Both Clinton and Bush expected a very high threshold of loyalty from their staffers, and cast their policies as an "us vs. them" conflict. With Clinton it was the "vast right wing conspiracy" and with Bush it is the "terrorists and their sympathizers".
To be honest, I have read of the reports that Islamic terrorist leaders in Hamas have gone on record saying that they support Obama over McCain. That disturbs me less than the fact that President Bush received financial support from the Saudi Royal family, and that President Clinton received similar support from Chinese military officers. I really don't give a rip what some enemy leader SAYS about our Presidential candidates, but when they start using their money to influence our elections I start getting a bit angry, and start wondering why we tolerate such influence.
For example, why are the McCains doing so much fundraising in foreign countries? Is anyone else concerned about the monitoring of the sources of these funds that are being contributed in all those trips to Europe and South America that the McCains have made recently?
And I read just yesterday that Obama is planning a fundraising trip to China?
Who is monitoring this to insure that only American citizens are contributing? Are we seeing yet more of the shenanigans that Clinton and Bush pulled with foreign donors?
Don,
You raise a good question. My understanding is that when these candidates had fundraising events overseas (I believe Hillary, McCain and Obama each had their own in London) that it was for American citizens living overseas to contribute funds. As for McCain raising money in Latin America or Obama raising money in China ... that is news to me. It's an interesting angle, to be sure. Something, I'm sure, for all of us to keep our eye on. Thanks!
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