So... the New Yorker cover... Barack Obama's wearing the Somali garb, Michelle Obama has a huge afro, donned in black militant fatigues and, uh-oh, they're giving each other that strange greeting called "dap." Hey, it's the New Yorker. They do satire. Of course Obama's campaign said it was too much and, yeah, of course McCain's campaign said it was too much. See, they have to, because the candidates are running for office and can't say what everyone with an ounce of common sense knows: If you believe any of the rumors that this cover represents, then you are a moron. Go ahead and say it with me — It's okay, you're not running for anything either.

"Those people are morons."

Now, wasn't that liberating?

C'mon, it's July 14, 2008. The getting-to-know-him rhetoric aside, the average person knows more about Barack Obama and his family at this point than we have known about any candidate in the past 30 years. Pop quiz time: How many of us know anything about Bill Clinton's parents? How many of us know anything about Jimmy Carter's church? How many of us know anything about Nancy Reagan's senior college thesis? There is more concrete information available about Team Obama than there has ever been for a modern candidate if you're interested in, y'know, the truth.

Yet, still, there are people—actual adults—who indulge in and believe every salacious innuendo and rumor to justify the opinions they've already set in stone. He's a Manchurian Muslim! Michelle is on tape calling white people, “Whitey!” He was sworn into office on the Quran! Obviously, we have to acknowledge that there's an icky racial undertone to the vast majority of the rumors Senator Obama has had to deal with and, frankly, if he were white I don't believe they would stick the way they have in some quarters. But I think it gives the people who believe this stuff too much respect, if you will, to label them racists. The “R” word is a big deal and should be dealt with in a serious manner.

But morons should be mocked.

That's why the fist jab stuff still makes me laugh. When Fox News and some conservative commentators started to question the notorious jab as, potentially, a secret terrorist (or maybe “black” which is almost as bad) signal, they were all soundly mocked by the rest of us. Hell, depending on how you want to interpret the chain of events, E.D. Hill lost her job because of this silliness. And, to this day, when I see anyone on television giving each other some dap, I point at the screen and yell, “Terrorist, terrorist!” while laughing to myself.

So I think we should embrace the New Yorker cover. Let's all take the opportunity to, once again, mock the moronic and laugh at their expense. We should get whatever enjoyment we can out of these morons since the truly frightening thing is that, when the laughter stops, they get to vote too.