Obama is certainly experiencing the crucible of presidential electoral politics. On one hand the venerated Jesse Jackson wants to perform a no-cost castration. On the other, the netroots are in a “cyber-tizzy” over Obama’s singing of the FISA bill. Now he has to shake the mainstream media’s gleeful exploitation of the “Muslim/ Black-radical meme.” This New Yorker cover from Ben Smith’s Politico blog highlights how the MSM can use the flimsy justification that the public’s belief in “the Muslim thing” is an interesting cultural pheonomenon and thus worthy of treatment.

Of course, if you’re going to talk about it, you need a controversial cover because, well, you have to sell magazines. It’s a sleazy turn in the coverage of presidential politics. The New Yorker has decided to racialize the Obama’s because a small sliver of the U.S. population thinks he’s a Muslim. They’ve given the darker forces of our culture a new laptop screen background.