I defended Obama on FISA. I approved of him refining his Iraq position. And of course I agreed with him when he toned down his anti-free trade rhetoric. But Obama refusing to have a sense of humor? This I will not stand for.

I thought The New Yorker cover was funny. Maybe some people don’t. Maybe some people are offended, although I can’t imagine why. But why did the Obama campaign object?

“The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create,” Obama spokesman Bill Burton said. “But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”

What that sounds like to me (and I’m just going off my gut here, so sue me for not citing a source or anything) is this: we get the joke, but we’re afraid stupid people won’t. And that’s the kind of elitism that bugs me.

A year ago, no one thought this country was ready for a black President. Or a smart President. But guess what? Obama won the Iowa caucus. He won Wisconsin. He even won the Idaho caucus by 64 points! Maybe it’s time that we give people the benefit of the doubt.

Besides, will anyone that actually reads The New Yorker get the wrong idea about the cover?

This is nothing more than the politics of umbrage — scoring political points by acting offended at something. Perhaps candidates think they look tough when they’re offended. To me, they just look like they’re taking themselves too seriously.

And then there’s the cynical read. What if the Obama campaign isn’t offended at all? What if they knew that the only way that people that don’t read The New Yorker would see the cover at all is if they objected? Perhaps they wanted the cover on the nightly news. Why? For two reason. One, to feed the storyline that liberals are mad at Obama. And two, because in every story about The New Yorker cover, the news anchor will have to say that the cover is satirical, and that Obama is not, in fact, a Muslim or a terrorist. Maybe the Obama camp thinks that the best way of confronting the jihadist-Manchurian-candidate meme is to become outraged by it.

If it works, then perhaps it will all be worth it. However, I’m saddened on a personal level that Obama couldn’t just laugh this one off.

–Hillel Aron