The cover of the July 21st issue of the New Yorker is just satire.

So far in this debate, we've agreed on the topic of contention, which is whether or not it was a bad idea for the New Yorker to publish the cartoon on their fron cover which depicts Senator Obama and Mrs.Obama in the oval office, as everything people who have attacked Mr.Obama's integrity used in the picture. Basically, I say that, maybe it wasn't extremely smart, but I think that it wasn't a bad idea to put the picture on the cover. My opponent believes that it was a "very very dumb thing to..." put the cartoon on the cover. My opponent cites a hypothetical situation of an "uninformed common man" seeing the New Yorker cover, and how this would adversely affect Senator Obama's ability to be elected. My opponent also cites a person's opinion that was read during a television news show. To refute the first argument, I would like to point out that numerous polls by Pew, Newsweek, CNN all show that there is about a 12-13% chunk of the population that believes that Obama is a muslim. That means that 87-88% of the population believes he is not a Muslim. Certainly one would have to say that the "average person" conforms to a vast majority, and the vast majority believes his not a muslim, so it can be assumed that the average person thinks he not a muslim. As far as the "uninformed common man" goes... in similar polls taken by Pew and Newsweek, about 24% of respondents believe he was raised as a Muslim. This means 76% believes he was not raised a Muslim. Once again, i've proven that the vast majority of the people in this country are informed. Because the vast majority of the people in this country are informed about issues regarding Barack Obama's past, I think its safe to assume that the vast majority of the people who see this cartoon will not think differently of Senator Obama. The people that already have their irrational reasons to be against Mr.Obama have them, this magazine cover won't convert any new people because of the magazine's already established audience. The audience of the New Yorker magazine is overall one of upper class Caucasian liberals, (elitists, as some may say). For better or for worse, those are the people that read the New Yorker, and those are the people the New Yorker tailors its content towards. The "uninformed common man" isn't likely to take a cartoon on a cover of an occasionally perceived 'elitist' magazine as truth. My main point, if I was not able to get it across before is that, the people who like Obama are still going to like him, and the people who dislike Obama for the reasons lampooned on the article cover are still going to dislike him. Also, the idea that this will lead to McCain's election is hard to believe, considering that poll numbers universally at this point give Obama a 5+ point lead, and also just the fact that the "republican brand name" is in poor condition due to the beating it took with W at the helm. Now that I'm done refuting, I'd like to offer my own personal defense of the cover. I believe that the cover of the New Yorker magazine that we are talking about may even have a positive effect on Senator Obama and his ability to get elected. As its been proven many times before, satire is one of the best attacks that anything can use to defeat anything else. The true ridiculousness of something doesn't come out until its magnified to the point of making people laugh, where it can then be seen for how crazy the thing is. In my opinion, that's what the New Yorker cover cartoon does. It shows just how wildly nonsensical the fears that are promoted by certain right wing figures really are. Although its point will be mostly received by its target audience, I do not believe there will be backlash, with the opposite point being received by other groups.