tasteless at the New Yorker

Tom Toles, of the Washington Post, today published his political cartoon take on a recent New Yorker cover.

Satire is effective when it is slightly askew, when a certain lack of realism indicates that it is indeed satire. When the satire is represented in an overly arch and/or realistic manner, it disguises the intent of the satire, and instead becomes an inside, wink-wink, joke.

Jack Shafer of Slate.com disagrees with me.

Although every critic of the New Yorker understood the simple satire of the cover, the most fretful of them worried that the illustration would be misread by the ignorant masses who don't subscribe to the magazine.