Keeping the eye on the ball

I've been avoiding ranting about presidential politics for a reason. It's a long season and it's early. But I've got to jump in today.

If I had ever been pretentious enough to be one of the 10 or so people that subscribed to the New Yorker, today would be the day I cancelled my subscription. I don't get it. I would expected this magazine to understand the difference between clever satire and offensive inappropriate personal attacks. I would have figured someone at the magazine would have seen this cartoon and held the presses and said, this really wasn't a good idea.

Or was this just another backhanded way to demonstrate some sort of political agenda? There's a large segment of the population that wouldn't get the satire and see it as a genuine position cartoon. Point McCain. Or maybe the New Yorker was trying to pull another Jesse Jackson type opportunity for Barrack to slam a bias and look good. Point Barrack. Is this just a meaningless media story during a lull in the campaign to generate hits/ratings? Point Media. Really, the losers are all of us. This type of cartoon and the resulting media field day have little place in political discourse. Because of this, we get distracted from the real issues again.

Shame on the New Yorker for causing all this.