blogger interrupted

The utter absurdity of the email smear campaign against Barack Obama is depicted by this month’s cover of the New Yorker (via Aravosis)

I actually think this is a good thing, and not just because it gives Barack a convenient excuse to openly battle these things by attacking a wingnut-hated publication.

Make no mistake – this is the image that Tony Slayden, Joy Atwood, every wingnut blogger in Ohio, and the boobs in Findlay see in their minds, right now, vividly.  Complete with the flag burning in the fireplace, and Bin Laden on the wall.

And when something as patently ridiculous as this image is being used to win an election with bigotry, the best way to beat it, instead of trying to hide it, is to give it a megaphone.  Encourage them to be as loud about their insanity as they want.  

Which is not what the mainstream media have been doing until this moment.  They have instead been pretending this isn’t happening, pretending that somehow, this image really isn’t the Number One Weapon in the Republican arsenal.  It is.  It’s the only way they can beat Barack Obama, they know it, and they are doing everything in their power to put precisely this image into people’s heads.  

I forget who said the answer to hate speech is more speech, but that is the founding principle of our 1st Amendment, and the New Yorker in the July 21, 2008 issue, is doing the most patriotic thing I’ve seen any media do this cycle.