Barack Obama tries to repair a PR blunder, but 2 days too late

He's been a quick learner. But it's too late this time for the Democrat who wants to move into the White House next January. And then get his kids a dog.

As our Swamp colleagues report, Barack Obama finally commented last night on the highly controversial cover of this week's New Yorker magazine. And he said all the right things. But he was about 54 hours tardy.

Sunday, as soon as the elitist magazine released its provocative cartoon cover, Obama declined to comment, not wanting to elevate it to something important enough for a candidate to speak about. Fine. But, as The Ticket promptly reported here, advisors still sent out his communications director, Bill Burton, to denounce it:

"The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create. But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

The McCain campaign immediately (and ultimately self-servingly) issued a similar statement quoting Tucker Bounds as saying: "We completely agree with the Obama campaign. It's tasteless and offensive."

The cover of this week's New Yorker magazine depicts Obama in one-piece Muslim garb and headdress fist-bumping his booted, Afro-wearing wife Michelle in camo clothes with an AK-47 and ammo-belt slung over her shoulder beneath a portrait of Osama bin Laden while the American flag burns in the fireplace -- in the presidential Oval Office. Other than that, nothing particularly ...

... incendiary in an election year full of rumors about the freshman senator's little-known past.

The cartoon has every detail that an intellectual magazine would think makes perfectly obvious over-the-top satire. And every detail that the Obama campaign would like the world not to think about or associate with its guy.

Denouncing it Sunday was an instinctive act. Genuine, to be sure. But really dumb damage control.

It was a huge PR mistake by a campaign that doesn't make many. The denunciations by both presidential campaigns accomplished one thing: They pushed a simple cartoon to the top of most-searched terms online and the top of the news lists of countless online sites, commentators, cable news shows, commentators and network TV newscasts for more than two days. No doubt it also helped the bottom line, boosting New Yorker single-copy sales this week.

Worse, the coverage of the strong reactions understandably made many curious to see what the fuss was about.

But think a minute. If the cover is so tasteless and offensive, why purposely call it to the attention of millions of Americans with a strong denunciation on an otherwise slow news Sunday afternoon? It turned a mere magazine cover that the Obama campaign would rather no one see into a must-see for millions. Say, the magazine prints a million copies. A million covers. But there are nearly 305 million Americans.

But as a result of the campaign-induced uproar, that image has now been reproduced and received countless millions more voter impressions than the magazine itself could ever dream of. It's been viewed hundreds of thousands of times already just on this blog. And, by the way, what was the Obama campaign doing calling the magazine, trying to get an apology, or intimidate someone?

Consult Public Relations Rule No. 3, maybe even 2.  Even gangsters know this, which is why they don't sue newspapers for calling them gangsters. Who wants a nice long libel trial with people arguing over your alleged gangsterdom? Even if you win, you lose.

Ignoring the magazine would have been ideal. But if that's not possible, what if Burton had made himself available -- that's not hard to do with reporters circling like hawks -- and waited for the inevitable New Yorker question and said something like, "C'mon, guys. It's a magazine cover, for Pete's sake. A cartoon. They think it's satire. It's a free country. It's sure not funny. We think there are far more important issues to put on the cover of a magazine, like the looming mortgage crisis that the Bush administration and its McCain cronies have ignored so long."

That dismissal and redirection would have made it hard for the McCain folks to point it out because they'd also be calling attention to their Bush connections.

Without an explosive response, that magazine cover story would have been a minor one-day story in far fewer places than it was. In fact, even assuming the McCain camp's denunciation was genuine, both campaigns joining in added more gasoline to the fire, which to be honest doesn't exactly hurt McCain's cause. It sure got all the chatter off the Phil Gramm whiner stuff quickly, an Obama gift to the GOP.

We're now in Day Three of discussing the magazine cover that Obama didn't want many to see.

So, last night on "Larry King Live," right out of the box before asking about Obama's main message, his big Iraq speech, old Larry goes right to the top issue: "We welcome to 'Larry King Live' Sen. Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee. He made a major foreign policy address today in Washington. We'll get to that in a moment.

"But I've heard a lot of others comment on it. We haven't heard you speak about it yet. That New Yorker cover which depicts you and your wife, and you dressed in a Muslim outfit, your wife in a kind of military outfit, Osama bin Laden's picture burning [sic], what do you make of that?"

And Obama calmly replied: "Well, I know it was the New Yorker's attempt at satire. I don't think they were entirely successful with it. But you know what? It's a cartoon, Larry, and that's why we've got the 1st Amendment. 

"And I think the American people are probably spending a little more time worrying about what's happening with the banking system and the housing market, and what's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, than a cartoon. So I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it."

Smart stuff. Too late.

Imagine what else we might all be talking about this morning if that had been the campaign's opening response Sunday.

-- Andrew Malcolm

(By the way, no one's talking about it much, but here's the actual article on Obama's early political days in Chicago that goes with the controversial cover. Warning: It's very long.)

Comments

[Rose]

Why blame Obama? It's the media that keeps these things going, stop giving them and yourself a free pass. You have the power to focus on important issues, but it's this kind of tripe you keep up-front-and-center.

[Malby]

The only reason that there was a "PR blunder" is that the media dogs went on and on until the stupid cover was the prime topic of conversation. I find it breathtakingly hypocritical for any the press to be criticizing ANYone for failure to focus on important issues, much less Obama, who has struggled--hopefully but unsucccessfully--to focus on something substantive. The media has been the biggest obstacle. With huge voids of time and space to fill with advertising, and few intelligent reporters thinking and writing on issues, all we get from the mainstream media is fluff. Though fluff seems far too benign a descriptor, given the numbers of dead in Iraq, the state of the economy, and our position in the world. "Barack PR Blunder." Oh my, how will history judge it?

[dorian]

the New Yorker distracted everybody from Phil Gramm but that's going to come back up as certainly as Rev. Wright will. I think Bill Burton's statement made little or no difference in terms of the amount of media coverage.

I think most people are over it already.

[Robert Cole]

That cover - would be merely outrageous on Mad Magazine. On any major publication, it is ugly.
If this 'liberal' publisher had said "we love Obama and put this out to show how sick all Republicans are" - it would be ugly.
There is nothing else here.

[Bud]

His "little known past" is not really a secret. He was born in America, was a kid, went to college, went to Law School and excelled, got involved in public service and excelled, ran for state office and excelled, ran for Senate and made a speech at a convention.

His life is quite frankly an open book. Or two.

What is really impressive is that Karl Rove and the other dark wizards have actually already convinced about 30% of America's finest TV viewers that Barack Hussein is an agent of terror.

What a weird world, I'm living all those sci-fi novels from the 50's!

YES. WE CAN.
try to stop us :)
why are folks afraid of a democracy with the people in power?? That's what the plan was in 1787!

[godlesspinko]

A better headline would be: Blogger tries to get more mileage out of a non-issue, two days two late. Give it a rest, harpie!

[Jay]

Our current president cannot articulate the plan for "victory" in Iraq after seven years ... yet people jump on Obama for waiting 54 hours to comment "correctly" on a cartoon.

This country's media and the focus of our national discourse is severely troubling.

(I wonder what Obama thinks about the twins or the baseball pllayer getting divorced?).

[Kent]

what's the point of this article? IT is talking about the cover more than Obama or anyone else is. IT is creating the news it claims Obama should respond to. Pointless verbiage.

[Doug]

I think you are wrong that the campaign statements propelled this to a top story.

The New Yorker cover is exactly the kind of shallow story that media (particularly cable news) love. It requires no research or thinking. The anchors can say "tsk, tsk", the commentators can be outraged, and the ratings are good.

[ApostasyUSA]

Awe...let's look at teh headlines.

Uh...Barack Obama repairs something.
Uh...Barack Obama blunders something.
Uh...Barack Obama needs something.
Uh...Barack Obama said something.

Oh...what's this...McCain = good. Oh OK...I'm the typical American voter......if the headlines say McCain = good then it must be true!

The economy has made great progress. Obama supporters are welfare sponges. Democrats are traitors. Republicans are patriots. America is admired around the world. The constitution is for weaklings. Everyone to the left of Dick Cheney is a socialist. We now own Mexico and China. The Saudis beg us for more oil. The millions facing foreclosure are whiners. The largest income inequality since the Great Depression is meaningless. Al-Qaeda has been destroyed. Iran has been weakened. Federal spending over the last 8 years has reduced by a trillion dollars. Scientific facts are a liberal conspiracy. 82% who think the country is on the wrong track drink kool-aid. 66% who disapprove of Bush are communists. Upper-income tax cuts during war make sense. The dollar has never been stronger. NAFTA creates jobs. Only greedy poor people and the media bellyache about skyrocketing gas prices.

After 8 years of the greatest president of all time, Obama will destroy America.

[Steve]

Oh, please.

This is hardly the sort of thing that a candidate should be wasting his or her time with.

In case you haven't noticed, we have two wars going with the potential for a third and an economy which, if not in shambles, is certainly in the grip of a "mental recession" that has the potential for an out and out Greater Depression that will rival and perhaps outstrip the Great Depression out parents and grandparents experienced in the 1930s.

It was a lame attempt at satire and should be recognized as such.

[Tasteless tasteless]

Oh, admit it, you LOVE to talk about something like this cartoon - it sells, and we all know print media is DESPERATE for sales. With layoffs at newsrooms around the country, this provides a little more paycheck security for you than another, as you said it, "slow news" day discussing what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a tempest of the media's own creation, nothing else - and it does nothing for tackling the problems in this country - of which there are many.

[Edguardo]

There are still a lot of unknown answers about Barack & Michelle Obama.

Michelle's comments about just now becoming proud of her country makes me wonder what she was thinking before Barack started running for President? My thoughts are that she was probably strongly influenced by the hateful comments of Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

I think that the magazine cover correctly portrays how a lot of people view these two...

[Jared]

Well, at least the L.A. Times is doing everything it can to assist Obama in smoothing this over...

[Peter]

The real dilemma is not the "New Yorker" cover. It's that you devoted your entire article to it.
Every day the media grabs any and all gossip and table scraps and then tries to make it into 'significant' news when the real issues affecting Americans and the world get much less analysis. This campaign has been frustrating and endless....and the press coverage is often ridiculous as anxious reporters wait impatiently for the next gaffe or misstatement...so desperate to write their wise insight!
WE NEED A MEDIA BREAK!!!!
Let the two candidates work their campaigns but the media only gets a once-a-month press conference; that's my fantasy! We would all stand to gain.

[Arpit]

So... let me get this straight... you think this story shouldn't be played up... and your response is to write a story about the story?

[mrs CT]

I love satire and irony however there is none in this cover. I read the New Yorker and love the cartoons and the covers. This one missed the boat! Shame on the New Yorker. It needed the motivation for this humor- somewhere it needed "Rove's PLaybook" or How to Spinf from the right or something! It can not stand alone.

[P W]

You're right. SO MANY blogs out there on this. NO - I don't find this funny either. I find it creepy - its kind of how I picture them alone! One blog I read claimed it wasn't good - his ears weren't drawn big enough. That's not nice. I say the only thing not drawn right was her behind, that wasn't drawn big enough.

[btb]

when i saw the headline for this story on google news, i was expecting to be very upset by this post. however, i completely agree with your assesment: they should have dismissed it as a cartoon and something not really worth talking about right from the start; by giving it the typical "righteous indignation" response we've come to expect from camp obama, it dominated the news cycle of the last two days. whether you thought it was funny or not, it really, REALLY did not deserve this kind of attention. i truly hope his press secretaries and various media team members get a better handle on how to respond to these issues, which will likely come up again in the next four months.

[Potential Voter]

I think Obama realized the point you're making with this article well ahead of time and actually did a very intelligent thing by both offering a denouncement of an elitist bastion to increase his appeal to the people who would not look past the cover, while further solidifying himself to the elites who will realize that ultimately he was doing an easily recognizable favor to the New Yorker.

While I think it was a smarter move than maybe you think it was, I also think a grand total of about fifty people in the world probably care about this overall story regarding the New Yorker's so-called incendiary cover.

The people who hate the New Yorker and are suspicious of Obama's supposed elitism are probably more impressed by him for this than the elites who read the New Yorker are dissatisfied.

[Tim Halloran]

Come off it, Andrew. Once again, the press blogosphere pretends to be "outside" of the political cycle. Are you trying to convince us that if the Obama campaign had NOT issued a statement that you would NOT have written your original post about the New Yorker cover? Baloney. Face it, the press made this a story with or without Bill Burton's help. I'm actually impressed with how much restraint the campaigns have showed. And with this post, you're STILL trying to make it into a story about the campaign, when it's really just a story the press is writing about itself ... amazing.

[anonymous]

The premise of this article is moronic.

[Karen]

Why too late? I'm surprised that you journalists have to keep digging for something to whine about instead of writing about the world tragedies that are taking us to hell in a hand-basket.

Please stop trying to make events out of non-events and write some serious stuff for those of us who live outside of T.V. land.

[Paul Dirsk]

Whenever we have someone in the news business lecturing a candidate on what they should have done in order to prevent something from becoming news, in the process providing a third cycle of coverage by agreeing that the item doesn't deserve coverage we are in danger of creating a self reinforcing black-hole vortex of hackery from which recovery is impossible.

Congratulations....

[John]

I don't find the magazine cover offensive at all. Moreover, I find it to be a characature of what alot of us are secretly thinking. But have no fear! I'm sure an Obama presidency will take care of that pesky 1st amendment and we won't have to edure any more thought provoking news media.