Liberals attempt satire, fail

Every blogger on the planet has spent the day having conniptions over the cover of the latest issue of The New Yorker:

Michelle Obama in an Angela Davis-style 'Fro, with an AK-47 slung over her shoulder, Obama in Arab-type garb, a flag burning in the Oval Office fireplace with a picture of Osama bin Laden over the mantle.

New Yorker editor David Remnick endeavors to explain that this is an artistic effort to "hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about" Obama "that have been propagated . . . on the right . . . about Obama's supposed 'lack of patriotism' or his being 'soft on terrorism' or the idiotic notion that somehow Michelle Obama is the second coming of the Weathermen or most violent Black Panthers."

In other words, Remnick meant this as a smear of Republicans, so it's OK. But the Left's official arbiters of outrage aren't buying what my old buddy Atrios calls the "Everybody Knows That They're Good Liberals So It's Satire" excuse. I'm tempted to offer specific suggestions for a counter-satire -- "Offensive Obama-Themed Cover Illustrations Rejected by David Remnick" -- but somehow I don't think Atrios would appreciate the nuanced irony.

Michelle Malkin, who's been on the receiving end of the "They're Good Liberals So It's Satire" treatment, isn't sympathetic to Obama's indignation.

UPDATE: The Good Liberals at the New Yorker have apparently diverted the Left's indignation from John McLaughlin calling Obama an "Oreo." Again, I resist the temptation to add nuanced irony.