Sell Out!
“The controversial July 21 cover of The New Yorker portraying Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama as a Muslim has been a virtual sellout on newsstands… The issue went off sale on Monday and preliminary estimates show single-copy sales surged 80 percent over average weekly newsstand sales, or around 75,000 copies, compared with average newsstand sales of around 43,000.” We wonder how many people actually read the related article… [NY Post]
I’m sure the editors of The New Yorker had NO IDEA that an envelope-pushing, controversial image on their cover might boost circ numbers. Well, good for them anyway.
The article itself is well worth reading. Far from the slobbery love-piece I might personally have preferred, it is a well-researched portrait of a politician who has — gasp!! — political experience, specifically navigating, fighting against, and working with the Chicago Democratic machine. So when he says “Yeah, I don’t do cowering”, we see why: they guy may not have served in the Senate since 1842 like mccain, but he’s been through the political crucible a time or two.
(Please note, though, that the law firm mentioned in the article, “Sidley Austin” was actually called “Sidley & Austin” when Obama met Michelle there in the mid-80′s. It only became “Sidley Austin” in 2001, after merging with Brown & Wood and transmogrifying LLC-wise into Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. A small nit, but pickable nonetheless.)
I read the article. Had no idea animosity against them was going on in Chicago. Michelle got the ball rolling by making friends with MLK family members, then Obama charmed everyone. They made some political enemies. Sour grapes. Such is the nature of the established local Chicago political machine, only to wake up and find out they can’t have their favorites win all the time. Obama’s charisma is hard to beat, as were the Kennedy’s.
It’s so over the top, people assume it will be collectable some day. I doubt many read the article or even the ads.
I love this cover and the magazine. Life is good, kittens, and packages tied up with string and clouds with puffy silver linings.
I’m sure it’s appeal is collectability. I have and am going to keep for posterity several newspapers released on 9/11 and during the Iraqi invasion.
This entire non-scandal is part of the reason he’ll win. Because he’s been so clever at manipulating the white-guilt elite and exploiting the hypersensitivity of the blacks who see anything less than 100% flattering about a black person as evidence of racism. If anything, this is a slight on the Muslim community as much as it is on Barack & Michelle as individual. There’s nothing racist about it. What’s racist about it? It’s a satirical non-racial anime featuring a black person. All it needed to be in order to qualify as racist was to feature a black person. The pathetic thing about Obama is that he is actually in on the elitist sense of humor since he is in fact a New Yorker reader.
The more he plays the same old politics the more we have to question just how he is different other than the color of his skin. This may be the only change blacks and white-guilt elite care about but what about the rest of us who actually question the things he says or challenge where he really stands.
Oh wait, we’re all racist. Forgot.