In Praise of the New Yorker for Forcing a National Discussion About the Lies About the Obamas

I doubt many copies of the latest New Yorker, nestled physically and perhaps spiritually somewhere betwixt Good Housekeeping and Hustler, are flying off the magazine rack at the local, beer-vending Get-N-Go.

But if they are, perhaps such a jumbo dose of seductive satire will accomplish what oodles of straight print journalism have so far failed to accomplish: the enlightenment of the exceedingly gullible.

Desperate measures and all that. I mean, come on, really. Barack Obama has traveled the campaign trail emphasizing his Christian roots for, what, roughly a year now?

Yet, in return, roughly one in ten voters still believes he had himself sworn in to the U.S. Senate on a Koran, about one in four thinks he grew up Muslim, and a staggering two in five have it fixed in their formidably unaware heads that he attended an Indonesian madrassa.

And some say the New Yorker cover could do harm to Obama's image?

Hardly. Most likely the cartoon -- showing, as everyone on our remote little planet knows by now, an automatic-rifle-toting Michelle, a turban-wrapped Barack, a fireplace toasting an American flag and a wall adorned with Osama bin Laden's portrait -- will soon be forgotten.

These campaign-season brouhahas burn with a fiery intensity indeed, leading many to think it's this brouhaha today, this brouhaha tomorrow, this brouhaha forever. And then, within 48 hours or so, poof -- it's gone, replaced by yet another seemingly interminable stink.

But this particular stink could be more beneficial than harmful to Sen. Obama.

I am reminded of Paddy Chayefsky's culturally faithful film, 'Network,' in which a corporate malefactor chose the clueless Howard Beale to preach his irredeemable gospel. "Why me?" mumbled Beale. To which the malefactor offered the obvious: Because you're on television, dummy.

And that, as I see it, is what may well redound to Obama's benefit.

For weeks, months, he has struggled to preach his true life's story, which in cavernous pockets of public ignorance has been overpowered by subterranean email campaigns.

These, in turn, have been too quietly treated as a too-delicate embarrassment by television network news, which doggedly resisted informing anywhere from 10 to 40 percent of its viewing audience that they're idiots.

Yesterday, however, the Obama-bedeviling scuttlebutt sprang out of the muted bag, courtesy The New Yorker cover. And the subsequent, or more accurately, consequent educational programming on the network news -- unavoidably sandwiched between 'Wheel of Fortune' and 21 minutes of local crime, weather and sports -- then finally hit broader swaths of the benighted population.

And it is, depressingly, a population more demographically diverse and upscale than one might at first think. To wit ... I recalled having read a story a couple months ago in the New York Times regarding prevailing opinion of Obama in a South Florida retirement community. I looked up the piece, and here was the frightening ignorance that had made such a lasting impression:

Mr. Obama is Arab, Jack Stern’s friends told him in Aventura....

He is a part of Chicago’s large Palestinian community, suspects Mindy Chotiner of Delray....

Mr. Wright is the godfather of Mr. Obama’s children, asserted Violet Darling in Boca Raton....

Al Qaeda is backing him, said Helena Lefkowicz of Fort Lauderdale....

Mr. Obama might fill his administration with followers of Louis Farrakhan, worried Sherry Ziegler....

I told you it was depressing.

On the other hand, these folks are the prime demographic and damn-near only remaining viewers of television network news, from which they derive so much of their information. So last night's coverage of the scandalous New Yorker artwork could have only been a corrective plus -- assuming it's remembered at all.