Fear Factor

On Monday, July 14, 2008 the above The New Yorker magazine cover, "The Politics of Fear", hit the newsstands. The cover immediately became a headline itself. The editors claim it is a satirical cover but the Obama campaign disagreed saying: "The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create", said spokesman Bill Burton. "But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

Republican John McCain from Arizona called the cover "totally inappropriate and frankly I understand if Senator Obama and his supporters would find it offensive."

I like to think of myself as having an average sense of humor, above average actually, but I didn't find this funny. I had a conversation with a friend of ours recently who claimed earlier that Fox News was a reliable news source. I teased him about the "terrorist fist jab" and "Obama's baby mama" and Obama taking office on an oath over the Koran - all the things this cover was taking a swipe at. "Now that's really news", I joked, "Did they need a PHD in Journalism to come up with that?"

Honestly though, that an educated, small business man that lives in Sacramento, California (the Capital) believes that Fox News is a legitimate news organization doesn't make me laugh. That 13% of Americans believe Barack Obama is now a Muslim or grew up as a Muslim is not funny. That Harold Ford, Jr. said on The Today Showthat "Obama is not a Muslim, he is a God-fearing man, a Christian", as if Muslims are not God-fearing does not amuse me. That we have a racial problem in this country does not cause me to laugh at the people that are prejudice. Quite the opposite.

I just can't laugh at the fact that fear controls people's lives and Washington operatives use their fear for their own political agenda. It doesn't really make me feel smug and superior as the cover suggests. Maybe looking back from a distance will make it funnier and maybe it's just too soon.

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself", stated Franklin D. Roosevelt in his first Inaugual Address, March 4, 1933. There are real risks and dangers in the world but none seem so big to me right now as people's own fears and misperceptions.