Good grief!

The New Yorker's current cover has brought the magazine plenty of publicity, but I'd love to be a fly on the wall in those offices right now.

The cover - Barack Obama in Muslim attire; Michelle Obama in an Afro, an AK47 slung over her shoulder; an American flag burning in the fireplace - has been big news in media around the country. Critics are noting that while the magazine has a liberal bent, this week's cover reinforces the lies that the right wing has been spreading about Obama.

But it was satire, the New York insists. Or parody. Or something.

The opinion of most of our editorial staff? It was a terrible mistake. "Ballsy," said News Editor Chris Fien, who had mixed feelings about the cover. But she qualified that: "I wish we lived in a world where the right wing wouldn't hold it up as proof of what they're saying, but we don't."

"Poor judgment," said Features Editor and New-Media Director Eric Rezsnyak, who noted that this couldn't have been a case of mistaken judgment by a sole editor. The New Yorker is notorious for its careful vetting and fact checking.

The idea - spoofing the right-wingers' lies - was fine, said Music Editor Frank De Blasé. "But it was poorly executed." If you have to point out to people that it was a parody, he said, you know it missed the mark.

To me, the cover was a complete shock. Even though I'm a longtime New Yorker subscriber, I had to think twice to realize that the magazine's illustrator and editors couldn't have been serious.

Interestingly, if you go to the New Yorker's website, you have to search hard to find the cover (if you look under a menu on the right, you find a link to the current issue, which gives you a small version of the cover). And you can't find the comments that are apparently pouring in to the magazine. You have to go to other media - almost any other media - to see what all the furor is about.

That makes two mistakes.