While the media accused David Remnick of smearing Barack Obama, the public didn’t care — they wanted to know what all the hubbub was about. So they picked up The New Yorker in droves, as much as you can call 85,000 newsstand copies “droves.” And nevermind that they didn’t even have to purchase the magazine to see what all the controversy was about — newsstands were displaying the cover for free. Like they always do.

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After the brouhaha that surrounded the New Yorker's cover of Barack and Michelle Obama, pundits and journalists alike said that Barack Obama, perhaps unfairly, was nearly impossibly to turn into a caricature or a political cartoon without negative consequences. A quick google image search of "Obama caricatures" and "Obama cartoons" proves otherwise.

With Larry King preempting a discussion about Obama's major foreign policy address (watch it here) yesterday in favor of asking questions about the latest New Yorker cover, Barack Obama tries to steer the media in a more productive direction.

"I've seen and heard worse. I do think that in attempting to satirize something, they probably fueled some misconceptions about me instead. But that was their editorial judgment. Ultimately it's a cartoon and not something that Americans should really be worrying about."

Duly noted. Video after the jump.

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Conservative Web site Worldnetdaily.com conducted an informal poll about the controversial New Yorker cover and found that most of the people taking the poll didn't so much understand the concept of satire. The majority of the respondents said that the "[t]he image isn't too far from the dangerous truth about the Obama family."

While the New Yorker said in a press release that its cover "satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the Presidential election to derail Barack Obama's campaign," for a majority of respondents to WND's poll, the cover apparently provided support for their false perceptions of Obama's religion and patriotism: As of 10:07 a.m. ET on July 14, the most popular option in the poll — selected by 60 percent of WND respondents — was "The image isn't too far from the dangerous truth about the Obama family." The second-most popular option was "Funny, because there's some truth in it," which was selected by 11 percent of respondents.

Hear that, New Yorker? Success! [MM]

Barry Blitt, the cartoonist responsible for the latest cover of the New Yorker, did his best to cram every right-wing smear of Barack and Michelle Obama onto a single, rectangular sheet of paper. He did a pretty good job. There's the framed photo of Osama Bin Laden above the fireplace. There's the American flag in the fireplace. There's Barack dressed like his friend Osama, and there's Michelle in camo, with an afro and an AK-47. Of course, they're exchanging terrorist fist jabs. And it all takes place in the Oval Office!

This, New Yorker editor David Remnick tells us, is satire. As he explained to the Huffington Post, his cartoon was mean to illustrate the ridiculousness of claims that the Obamas are unpatriotic, Bin-Laden-loving, Islamic terrorists. Knowing the liberal bent of the New Yorker, this very likely was, at some point, the intended purpose of the controversial cover. But does it succeed?

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