Laura Flanders: Vanity Fair's Retort to the New Yorker's Obama Cover Misses the Mark

Posted by Laura Flanders, Firedoglake at 3:02 PM on July 24, 2008.

Vanity Fair has released a cartoon cover online in response to the New Yorker's swipe at the media coverage of the Obamas. The fake Vanity Fair cover shows John McCain, in a walker with a bandaged head and Cindy with a bundle of pills giving her hubby a fist-jab. A portrait of George W. Bush hangs over the mantle-piece; the Constitution is burning in the grate.

Some are finding it funny. I'd say not so much. Worse, it's all wrong. If Vanity Fair's cartoonist wanted to flip the New Yorker cover on the GOP, they'd have to portray the media's lies about the candidate. Not the true stuff.

Sure, she's no drug addict, but the candidate's wife has been forced to admit that she was once addicted to prescription drugs. She even stole the drugs from her own nonprofit medical relief outfit. And while McCain doesn't use a walker, it's not as if the media misrepresent his age. Those aren't the media's wrongs where the McCains are concerned. It's not her looks, it's her wealth themedia understate, and it's not his physique, it's his politics.

To do the media hit job fairly, Vanity Fair should have taken aim at the media's lies: pundits pretend McCain's a maverick. He's not. He's voted with Bush 95 percent of the time. The equivalent to the lie about Obama being a muslim is the lie about McCain breaking with the Bush pack. The equivalent to the lie about Michelle being dangerous -- is the lie about Cindy being one of us. She's a $100 million aristocrat -- who stands to win big from her husband's tax plans.

For all the flips and flops of the McCain campaign so far, the one thing that's true is that the Constitution might as well be burning in the grate. And if McCain ever wins the Oval office, you can be sure GW's policies, if not his portrait will be on display. Again, that's not satire. Satire, sadly, would be the Constitution safe and GW banished.

Funny it's not. We can only hope that this sales-boosting silly season's over.

Tagged as: bush, gop, satire, obama, mccain, candidates, election '08, new yorker, vanity fair, cartoon covers

Laura Flanders is the host of RadioNation and the author of Blue Grit: True Democrats Take Back Politics from the Politicians.