After a midweek trip to Kansas City, where I spoke about the presidency at one of the nation’s finest public libraries, I hoped that the flap over this week’s cover of The New Yorker would pass, and I could avoid this ruckus altogether. Alas, it won’t go away…

If you’ve been fishing in Montana or somewhere (I’m headed there myself tomorrow), and missed the hullabaloo, the reliably liberal New Yorker evidently got bored with its normal target (George W. Bush), and took out instead after those gullible and unenlightened souls who have fallen for Internet chatter asserting that Michelle Obama is some kind of Sixties radical, that Barack Obama is a secret Muslim, and that failing to wear a flag lapel pin is unpatriotic. The New Yorker did all this in its own imitable style, which is to say, it did it in the form of a single cartoon—one the magazine’s editor, David Remnick, found so compelling he put it on the cover.

Political satire is not Reader’s Digest’s forte, but The New Yorker is famous for it. Since the magazine’s editors are obviously fond of the Obamas, and since challenging bigotry is always a worthy cause, you might have thought the magazine would win praise for its efforts—and not just among Obama’s supporters. Think again.

First came the denunciations from “liberals” who deemed it “offensive” or "racist" hate speech. This is the humorless wing of the Democratic Party, the kind of folks who invoke campus speech codes and the like. You know, the kind who wanted Huckleberry Finn banned for the use of the “n” word, apparently because they can’t distinguish between a racist book and the most influential anti-racist novel in American history.

Next came the sort of people who surely did comprehend that the cover was satire, but who fretted that those it is aimed at won’t get it. This seems, by definition, a pretty elitist view, as Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist and former New Yorker staffer noted: “The essence of what they’re saying is, ‘I get it, but I don’t trust the people in Kansas to get it.’”

Predictably, the two presidential campaigns were dragged into this. Obama’s camp put out a statement acknowledging the cover was satire, but predicting that “most readers” will see it as tasteless and offensive. That “most readers” claim was a guess, but it left John McCain in the position of (a) defending the First Amendment; or (b) being called a bigot if he did so. He chose (c), which is to say, he parroted the Obama line, castigating the cover as “totally inappropriate.”

Perhaps it was. Or perhaps it was a well-aimed dart at the heart of prejudice. Maybe it was funny; maybe it was over-the-top. These are subjective judgments, and reasonable people can disagree, hopefully civilly. I mean that. I’ve said my piece, but there are other viewpoints. One of our guests at the 2008 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner was columnist Kathleen Parker. She agrees with me, and her column is here. On the other side of the question was another of Reader’s Digest's guests at the WHCA dinner. His name is Sean Elder, and he is one of the more thoughtful of the Obama-ites, and a graceful writer as well. His critique of the flap is here on his blog.

For those not persuaded by my logic, please post a (civil) comment below. Or, if you want a more tangible protest when it comes to The New Yorker, you have another recourse: Don’t buy it! Pick up our magazine at the newsstand instead. (Note for the humor-challenged, regarding that last sentence—I’m kidding. Sort of.)