I was, in addition, struck by two of their early points: one, timing. The cover would have been actually funny (instead of what it was, either offensive or puzzling) if the editors had elected to run it the week before an Obama inauguration. Two, the cover failed as satire because it was a send-up of a perception. Not only that, but a discredited and noxious right-wing perception that is further beset with internal and fatal inconsistencies–radical Muslims marry Black Panthers?

Both Hayes and Douthat noted that 99 percent of good satire is rooted in a skewering send-up of a person, or one of that person’s traits, as he (it) really is. Herblock, Oliphant, all the greats, get at some ridiculous trait and push it in a way that everyone recognizes in a satisfying intellectual exercise that makes readers say, “Yes! Exactly. He nailed it.”

Their larger discussion of American exceptionalism, as embodied by Obama, was also interesting and generous. I did not get all the way through the long diavlog but can’t recommend it highly enough.