Anchoring Obama's Trip

"It's official: The Bush era has made liberals so terrified of right-wing smears it has caused them to completely lose their sense of humor.

"Much as I hate to repeat one of Rush Limbaugh's flat, stale and unprofitable applause lines, that's the only conclusion I can draw after witnessing the left-wing blogosphere's bizarre reaction to the New Yorker cover depicting Barack Obama in the Oval Office as a dishdasha-clad Muslim terrorist, exchanging a 'terrorist fist jab' with Michelle Obama, who is dressed like a latter-day Angela Davis with huge 'fro, combat boots, assault rifle and bandolier of bullets -- while Osama bin Laden looks approvingly on from a picture frame and an American flag burns merrily in the presidential fireplace. To judge from the reaction of much of the left, you'd think that New Yorker editor David Remnick had morphed into some kind of hideous hybrid of Roger Ailes and Roland Barthes and was waging an insidious Semiotic War against Obama.

"I don't know what lugubrious planet these people are on, but I definitely don't want any of them writing material for Jon Stewart . . .

"The more brain-dead among the posters on left-wing blogs angrily denounce the New Yorker cover as itself racist. Merely to acknowledge racism, for them, is to be racist . . . Not a single work of satire could ever pass this paranoid test."

To make sure those on the right know how it feels, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer runs an imaginary National Review cover with a doddering McCain in a wheelchair, being ministered to by a pill-popping Cindy. Yuck.

Finally, a Portfolio profile of Katharine Weymouth includes this observation from The Washington Post publisher: "The numbers in our business suck."

Not much to argue with there.