A Perception Problem

The damage President Bush has done to America's image abroad is greatly exaggerated. That one under experienced politician like Obama Barack can single handedly change the world' s perception of The USA is extremely rediculous and it shows a lack of insight by those who think this way. If one man can change the world's perception of the US, it shows how irrellevent that perception is and how twisted it is. The worlds perception of the US will not improve for long if Obama becomes president, because the world will see that the US no longer has a strong and good leader.

To those who disparage Obama: what are you offering America. McCain?
McCain is a cheating, flip-flopping, muddled politician who thought the Iraq war would be a cakewalk. He continually says that his closest advisors don't represent his (McCain"s) own beliefs. Yet only recently, McCain praised the same people he is disavowing now. If McCain disagrees so strongly with his closest advisors, why did he make them advisors in the first place? McCain is obviously lying about this issue.
Obama is a paragon of virtue when McCain's distortions are considered.

No McCain in '08!
Vote Obama.

Ms. Clift may have a point ...somewhere. All of us bitter, gun-toting, and religion clinging voters probably just look at the Internet pictures without reading the elitist scorn about why we question Obama's ties to people like Rashid Khalidi who speaks with Ahmadinejad (Columbia visit) and Bill Ayers. We ask why Raila Odinga says Obama is his cousin, why Obama campaigned for him, and these little things that the media ignores.

We finally have a candidate in Obama who wants to build America using those qualities that have made it great (a willingness to rise to the occasion using new methods), but who is willing to forgo the ineffectual strategies that have held it back in the past.

Obama gives us a chance to move forward, seize the initiative, and begin a new era of innovation and prosperity.

Let's not blow it! Vote Obama in '08!

Right on analysis of that cover. Many of us get it, but most don't. The majority of people who will see this cover (and by now, almost everyone must have) cannot discern it's satirical intent as most of us are unwilling to think past sound bites or visuals. Others who get it will use it to propagandize for someone (McCain) who is unfit for office due to his lame campaign, flip-flops, disdain for women, and questionable mental capacity. The New Yorker, by dislaying this cartoon, joined the ranks of the corporate media who do not report any of the reasons (just the truth will do) not to vote for .McCain.
Connie Hussein Louis

OK, now I get it !
New Yorker front cover satire for Dem / lefties = insulting and in bad taste.
New Yorker front cover satire fo Rep / righties = Humorous and on point.
:-)

I have to disagree with your assertion that "the reason Obama is ahead by only a handful of points in a political environment poisonous for Republicans is because of lingering concern over his "exotic" (that's the code word) name and background." There are many reasons why this may be the case. I'm a lifelong, educated, urban Democrat. I'm struggling with my choice this year because I simply do not have faith in Senator Obama. He has spent most of the last 15 years running for the next level office and not much more.

i have decided that Clift is stupid, stupid, stupid. She thinks that everyone who hears Obama speak would readily support him and doesn't consider (as most reporters don't) that the fact that people don't support him is b/c they do not believe in his liberal agenda. It not b/c people are shallow or racist as she implies. Obama is the emperor with no clothes who believes in raising taxes in a recession. No one would be elected with this platform except the candidate that makes the conversation about "change" rather than "reality". And we all will be the worse for it. Most european economies are basically socialist so why wouldnt they welcome Obama's election.

Take Mysty22's comment, which follows this one. She claims, "Obama is Muslim by blood. There is no denying it no matter how hard you all try." What she doesn't understand is that religion can't be passed through blood; it is a conscientious choice. Maybe she further doesn't understand that the word "Muslim" doesn't refer to race, genetics or bloodline, but means "one who believes in and practices the religion of Islam." Once she is educated on these scores, then she might understand the truth: that Obama was never a Muslim. But frankly, I doubt it. I think hate and racism precedes reasoning and powers the creation of rationalization or reason-creating processes, however wildly unrealistic and irrational these manufactured reasons may be. The cartoon is just a cartoon, but will do more to increase the false ideas about Obama than its intended effect of reducing them.

Interesting...
The "intelligent" Dem/left elite are too stupid to understand satire. Amazingly enough, not one Dem/left pundit has defended the New Yorker's right to free press.
Meanwhile, the "stupid uneducated" Rep/right say, "it's just a cartoon. Ignore it".

What is it with you democrats and your need to be "loved." Here is a newsflash: Merkel likes Bush. Sarkozy likes Bush. Brown is okay with Bush. Canada's PM like's Bush. Poland and Eastern Europe LOVE Bush. The people who "hate" Bush are the socialists and the government tyrants like Chavez, Castro, etc.
I'm tired of this "the world hates us" narrative. The world doesn't have to love us. We'll save them anyway.

Make this election a referendum onMcSame (McBush) and the GOP (Greedy Oil Party).

Obama is by far the more talented, and his wife is fabulous - smart, well educated and charming, powerful in her own right and in her own previous career, and a true role-model for girls across this nation - just as Hillary was and still is for many women and girls... The Conservatives picked on Hillary too.

The image on the New Yorker cartoon has people confused. Americans just don't "get" satire, irony, parody and the rest - not eve Hollywood does a good job in its creative efforts at these conceits. There is just not a good literary or artistic appreciation of these vehicles of expression - it's too complicated. And Elinor is right - many dummies will misinterpret the magazine cover and see it as reinforcement of the image.

But MOST Americans have a sense of humor and will take a cartoon as just that - satirirical humor... and forget about all the agonizing, hand-wringing, wimpering and maniacal extremists on the Right who are just as potentially damaging to America as the intensity of their patriotic vitriol to the opposite intent!

Why do all the dumbest people across this country support McSame?

Why do all the so-called "elites" and educated college grads in the urban centers tend to support Obama?

Because we are TIRED of being led by MORONs in the White House. THAT's the CHANGE that a new, fresh, SMART and polished communicative leader will bring - INTELLIGENCE and INFLUENCE - to the entire world, not just for the benefit of our countrymen.

Why is there still such reactionary resistance? Let the good thing happen and stop agonizing over whether or not this candidate is an elitist, an effect intellectual and an "exotic" personage. We need to get the BEST PERSON POSSIBLE into the WHITE HOUSE and this is NOT John McSame. That would be as bad or worse than allowing Mr. Bush Jr. to be "elected" by hook or by CROOK for two terms. We should CRAVE A HUGE CHANGE from this illegal, illicit, CHEATING, LYING WHITE HOUSE and PRESIDENT - and DISTANCE OURSELVES as far as humanly possible from a similar path ni the next four years.

DO NOT ELECT McSAME, McPAIN, McCAIN'T, McCOMPLAINT, McBubba, McMoron. It would be setting us back another 50 years and putting us on a sure course toward DECLINE. An aging, doddering old man with stale, old ideas backed by a derelict and obsolete GOP and a Trophy Wife who looks like she is a Stepford Robot.... You can't tell me that the majority of Americans will settle for this ultra-cliche of a Presidential candidate, this sheer and utter mediocrity, this lack of innovation, creativity and intelligence???

Americans are better than that!

Eleanor - ARE YOU SERIOUS???

I agree with Mariana. Get a clue. All Barry Obama does is COMPLAIN AND WHINE. Sorry a little satire hurts. Guess it touched a nerve maybe. Maybe because it's too close to the truth. Osama (oops, Obama) has the support of the Palestinians. They obviously want him as President, instead of the patriotic, true-American John McCain. Obama doesn't know what he is, or what he believes in. He will say and do whatever is necessary to get elected. Please, America, wake up before its too late!!!