The New Yorker magazine front page featured a cartoon of Barack Obama. Vanity Fair magazine featured a cartoon of John McCain. Condé Nast Publications produces The New Yorker and Vanity Fair magazines.
Obama’s cartoon showed an image of Michelle and Barack Obama. Obama is in a turban and robes fist-bumping his wife. Michelle is shown as wearing an afro hairstyle, dressed in the military fatigues of a revolutionary, and packing a machine gun and some serious ammunition. This quaint little scene takes place in the Oval Office, under a picture of Osama bin Laden above a roaring fireplace, in which burns an American flag.
McCain’s cartoon showed an image of Cindy and John McCain. McCain is using a walker and fist-bumping his wife. Cindy is shown carrying a handful of medication and dressed modestly. This quaint little scene also takes place in the Oval Office, under a picture of President Bush above a roaring fireplace, in which burns the Constitution.
Now, is this satire or reality?
These cartoons have caused the public to make the following comments:
- Cindy McCain was addicted to prescription drugs at one time.
- Cindy wasn’t just addicted to prescription drugs. She stole them from her own charity.
- Has everyone forgotten that McCain dumped his first wife for his money train and how he’s not able to keep his pants on around the ladies?
- Instead of a fist bump, he should be whacking her with his walker (there have been rumors of spousal abuse.)
- Offensive?! No. What’s offensive is lying, cheating, and stealing away our money to perpetuate a lie and a war designed only to make companies like Halliburton and their executive’s richer, at the cost of American and Iraqi lives! That my friend’s is offensive.
- What’s more offensive? A candidate that has been bought by those same war criminals, who intends on continuing the same dictator-like policies.
- It’s sad—I feel that the artist has taken extreme liberty with their depiction of John McCain. Everyone knows that the McCain tumor bulge lives on the left side of his face, not the right.
A cartoon is usually considered as funny. When it’s offensive, the artist calls it satire. The Obama cover has no real basis in fact, other than the fist bump. The McCain cover has no real fabrications, other than, perhaps, the burning of the constitution.
