Controversy erupted over Rolling Stone putting a smoldering picture of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on the cover. If you didn’t know better, you’d assume this mop-topped stubbly man was the lead singer of a hot new band.
Rolling Stone is not a regular purveyor of “news” covers – with the exception of their series of Glorious Obama covers. Surely, they would never consider a cover for George Zimmerman – he’s both become a left-wing symbol of murderous racism, and he’s not “dreamy” enough for a glamorous pop-culture magazine.
Rolling Stone tried to manage the controversy label with the words over the picture: “THE BOMBER: How a Popular, Promising Student Was Failed by His Family, Fell Into Radical Islam, and Became a Monster.”
So there are the words “bomber,” “monster,” and “radical Islam.” But there’s also tha
t usual liberal junk about being “popular” and “promising,” as if anyone in high school is voted “Most Likely To Kill and Maim In a Terrorist Attack.”
The magazine published a preview Tuesday proudly declaring "contributing editor Janet Reitman delivers a deeply reported account of the life and times of Boston bomber Jahar Tsarnaev."
"Reitman spent the last two months interviewing dozens of sources – childhood and high school friends, teachers, neighbors and law enforcement agents, many of whom spoke for the first time about the case – to deliver a riveting and heartbreaking account of how a charming kid with a bright future became a monster," boasted RS.
According to Boston's CBS affiliate WBZ, after putting the cover at its Facebook page, RS has received thousands of negative comments.
The controversial cover has sparked a new Facebook account calling for a boycott of RS as a result. The page has received almost 40,000 likes.
The reaction on Twitter was swift: How about a cover for Sean Collier, the policeman shot and killed by the Tsarnaev brothers?
