George,

"Sometimes the insularity of Manhattan can be as confining as small town prejudices. Living and working in the world's most self- important city doesn't give one a right to act irresponsibly. It just may mean that your head is stuck up your ass." -- The BuzzFlash Editor's Blog for July 15th

No one has a right to lecture The New Yorker on what is and is not satire. So it is good to remember we are not talking to a great magazine, but rather to a new-age editor.

To be a satirist you must be satirical, not a copycat. For example, you do not make a statement against genocide by killing people. You do not condemn lynching by hanging someone. You do not point out George Bush is an idiot by being one yourself.

And more to the point, you do not spoof "Human Events" or another right-wing rag by running the same all-bigotry cover they might run. That's common sense, not editor rocket science or even Journalism 101.

A dear friend here, now dead, used to write racist letters to the local daily in the '50s and '60s "satirizing" the race issues of the day. If you know him, you knew these outrages were tongue-in-cheek insults. If you didn't, and that was 95% of the readers including the racist editorial page editor of those days, his letters were serious communiques from a reader.

The only cause he harmed with that was his reputation. The New Yorker editor has done likewise.

One wonders what graphics they will choose for a John McCain cover. Perhaps satirize his age by giving him a walker and 20 bottles of pills?

Rey Barry (electronic mail, July 15, 2008)