As much as I enjoy seeing one of the more enduring black media institutions getting coverage in the New York Times, the comparison to Rush Limbaugh is an inappropriate one, and you'd think that the phenomenon itself would be worth a story without it. Radio hosts like Michael Baisden and Tom Joyner, whatever their affinity for Obama, aren't hardcore Democratic partisans.

On Sunday night, hours before The New Yorker's latest issue had been delivered to newsstands, the internet exploded with conversation over the cover. It features a caricature of the Obamas as they exist in the minds of many of their right-wing critics: Barack is wearing a turban and sandals as he fist bumps with Michelle, who is decked out in fatigues with a "black power afro" that is about as radical looking as a jheri curl. They stand in the oval office, with a portrait of Osama bin Laden hanging on the wall and an American flag smoldering in the fireplace.