You know, it's one thing to be the victim of a cruel media attack by some conservative wing-nut publication, but now I have to look out for--The New Yorker? What a great idea, David Remnick. Put me and Michelle on the cover dressed as Muslim terrorists! What--you didn't like the mock-up of us killing baby seals?

I had never seen The New Yorker until I arrived at Harvard for freshman orientation. This guy "Ian" who lived down the hall from me--very artsy, wore a Japanese bandanna--walks into my room reading a copy. He's laughing his ass off and says "Look at this."

It's a sketch of two people sitting on bean bag chairs in an apartment, talking to their guests. "We're not rich, but we're comfortable." A real knee-slapper.

I hand it back to him with the best smile I can generate for the sort of low-octane, NPR humor that educated white people find so amusing. And he's all "What--you don't get it?"

I get it, I said. It's just not that funny. You would have thought I'd told him his Patagonia fleece pullover was tacky. A black guy questioning his world view? Incroyable!

Come to find out, New Yorker cartoons are a kind of litmus test for east coast liberals. You have to know which ones rate a knowing smile, which ones to chuckle at, etc. It's like a secret handshake.

Let me put The New Yorker's influence in perspective. If I get the vote of every one of their subscribers, I carry maybe one precinct in New York, San Francisco and Boston. And I lose in a landslide.