Barry Blitt: A Modest Retrospective

So yeah, this week’s New Yorker cover. Everyone is shocked! shocked! Or at least everyone who works in a Presidential campaign. Obama (who recently approved Bush’s Constitutionally questionable warrantless wiretapping bill) thinks it’s “tasteless and offensive.” The McCain camp concurs. Totally understandable, since as we all know satire (part of that whole “freedom of speech” deal) is supposed to be in good taste. The conclusion here apparently being that Americans are too stupid to differentiate between satire and slander, and/or Obama supporters too thin-skinned to appreciate the humor (we happen to disagree on both counts, by the way).

One wonders if a similar cover of Hillary Clinton would have elicited such a response, or how about one of Hillary and Obama in bed together, or one of George Bush in an apron, or maybe a foreign head of state being propositioned in a men’s bathroom a la Larry Craig, or the entire Oval Office swimming in post-Katrina waters for that matter, or sailors kissing? Considering these are all subjects depicted on previous Barry Blitt New Yorker covers the answer would have to be no. Take a look for yourself after the jump.

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