Adam Serwer explains the often-confusing debate about this week's New Yorker cover:
As the image exploded across the blogosphere, it became apparent that many of those who were meant to get the joke did not. Some thought the cover didn't work as satire, while others thought it was a fantastic send-up of right-wing myths about Obama, and still others thought it shouldn't have been a big deal either way. And the conflicting opinions were not confined to liberals, or to Obama supporters. While some conservatives went so far as to praise the cover as accurate, others actually agreed the image was offensive. Below, a rundown of reactions.
Sarah Posner has the latest on the religious right:
After McCain clinched the nomination, the religious-right leadership slowly realized they had to play the game -- but they ended up getting played by McCain. Religious-right leaders acted publicly as if they were withholding judgment until McCain gave them something -- and oh, that something was not much: perfunctory support for the California gay marriage ban and a pledge to clone John Roberts and Samuel Alito for any Supreme Court appointments. That's it. No prayer sessions, no random citations of Bible verses, no evangelical code words embedded in speeches, and not a single rhetorical bone about Christian nationhood. Even his recently retooled campaign slogan, "Reform, Prosperity, Peace," abandoned religious-right buzzwords like "values," "family," and "faith."
And, in a column from our last print issue, Thomas Geoghegan writes about the new generation of young bankers financing the Democratic Party:
It's these under-30 wonder kids that Democratic Party leaders are already having to hit up for money. Of course, there should be campaign-finance reform, but the problem isn't solved simply by saying, "I won't take their money." The bigger problem is that these young plutocrat-to-be liberals from Teach for America already have so much clout in shaping the political message of the left.
One day, all we may care about is who heads the Fed. Indeed, under the very nice Ben Bernanke, the Fed has seized broad new authority for regulating the whole economy, to make sure that no one in the financial sector ever gets to fail. That's the new social contract: In Tribeca, at least, no kid will ever lose his (or her) first (or second) condo.
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