I saw the Barack Obama cartoon on the cover of the latest New Yorker, and, as a former professional political cartoonist myself, I thought it was an absolutely brilliant satire of all the internet nonsense that has been going round about Obama and his wife!

I think that people who are upset about this have not realized that anyone who would see this satire of prejudice and ignorant rumors as an actual confirmation of them, wouldn't vote for Barack Obama in a month of Sundays, even if you offered 'em a six-pack of Bud to do so! (now I'm showing my own prejudice, based on the color of someone's neck!:-)).

I am appalled actually, that what is intended as a brilliant satire of irrational fear and prejudice is now going to be spoken about for days or weeks on end.

I think it's "Fiddling while Rome burns". We have so many problems that we face: a crumbling economy; a housing meltdown; failing banks; rising inflation; enormous gas costs; a global food shortage and rising food costs; a costly war; broken and crumbling infrastructure; a broken medical system; a bankrupt social security system; insurmountable debt both personal and governmental; exported jobs; falling wages; a broken education system that fails nearly all children, and a foreign policy that is in tatters and ruins!

But, hey, we can distract ourselves by making a veritable Everest out of an ant hill, because it's so much more fun to discuss a cartoon on a magazine cover that has a readership of less than 1% of the population (and all of them educated and sophisticated), than to discuss how we will address and fix our real overwhelming problems!

Personally, if I were Barack Obama, I'd have laughed at this cartoon, offered to purchase the original from the cartoonist, and framed it and pointed out that it brilliantly satirizes the stupidity of the comments and innuendos that have been spread about him on the internet. Unfortunately that won't happen, because we seem to have collectively lost our sense of irony and satire!