It worked

Don't you get it? New Yorker magazine just hit the jackpot.

Somewhere, deep in their editorial offices Monday morning, I imagine that the editors and bean counters were cheesing mighty hard around the water cooler. They could care less about whether Obama, his campaign or his grandmama were offended by their allegedly satirical cover illustration of the Senator and his wife dressed in terrorist garb.

That's not the point. The point is that folks are talking about the magazine, good or bad. The cover dominated the discussion for the day. That's a win. Vanity Fair is probably wishing they had thought of it first.

Also, Editor David Remnick tried to explain: "The idea that we would publish a cover saying these things literally, I think, is just not in the vocabulary of what we do and who we are."

Sure, whatever. The important thing is that they move more subscriptions and get more copies taken off those newstands. It'll be interesting to know how well this issue of the magazine sells.

I don't have much of an opinion about whether or not this is appropriate. I'm not all that outraged but I can see an argument for why someone else might be - I don't think any major publication would publish an illustration of McCain in a Klan outfit or anything.

I can buy that the idea was satire, poorly executed. But, in the end, it was mostsly a great marketing ploy. I'll have to go out and get a copy today - I have a place for it on my coffee table next to this magazine.