How Obama should have handled the New Yorker cover
Isaac Chotiner is surely smoking something if he thinks that “no one would have even noticed” this week’s New Yorker cover had Team Obama not made such a stink about it. We’re talking about a magazine with a paid circulation of more than a million, one that is read by probably half the country’s media ...
Isaac Chotiner is surely smoking something if he thinks that "no one would have even noticed" this week's New Yorker cover had Team Obama
not made such a stink about it. We're talking about a magazine with a paid circulation of more than a million, one that is read by probably half the country's media elite. No way this is getting ignored.
Isaac Chotiner is surely smoking something if he thinks that “no one would have even noticed” this week’s New Yorker cover had Team Obama
not made such a stink about it. We’re talking about a magazine with a paid circulation of more than a million, one that is read by probably half the country’s media elite. No way this is getting ignored.
No, the smart play here for Obama would have been to laugh it off as brilliant satire. Imagine if he’d said something like this:
“I love it,” Obama told reporters, referring to the controversial magazine cover. “It does a great job of showing just how ridiculous a lot of this stuff that gets said about me really is. Kudos to the New Yorker for creativity. I hope they sell a lot of magazines.”
Would that end the controversy? Of course not. The cable talk shows would chew this thing to death regardless. But laughing it off would project a real air of confidence. Instead, the campaign just looks rattled.
Blake Hounshell is a former managing editor of Foreign Policy.
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