With the long-time news weekly on the verge of shifting from a paper publication to an online magazine, the folks at Newsweek have apparently thrown caution to the wind and are publishing whatever they feel like as long as it praises Democrats and hazes Republicans.
Case in point: the cover of the periodical's post-election edition, which shows President Obama dressed like Napoleon Bonaparte in addition to a headline that reads: "GOP: You're Old, You're White, You're History!"
In the illustration, Obama is wearing a blue-and-gold waistcoat, looking like a pompous emperor with the White House behind him. That graphic is accompanied by the headline: "The Obama Conquest: Lucky General or Master of the Game?"
In announcing the cover, Newsweek quoted the French dictator, who said:
Give me generals who know something about tactics and strategy, but best of all, give me generals who are lucky.
However, Nick Chiles of the alabamablackstar.com website criticized the inclusion of the work "lucky" in the cover text:
With back-to-back decisive wins, with substantial evidence of the years of planning that went into the Obama strategy, with the president's beginnings as a community organizer being employed in devising a ground game that activated turnout better than any campaign in modern history, many people will wonder why the word "luck" is entering the picture.
"The image is sure to draw plenty of praise and scorn," Chiles added, and he was right.
At first glance, the comparison seems apt since Napoleon is considered a military genius who was always several steps ahead of his opponents as he led the French army to conquer most of Europe in the early 1800s.
By comparison, Obama's victory over GOP opponent Mitt Romney is "already burnishing his image as a master campaign strategist who had the electoral college locked up before the campaign even began with his superior ground game and registration advances," Chiles continued.
However, Chiles states that there might be unflattering aspects in the comparison of Obama to Napoleon.
For example, was Newsweek referring to the president as a petty tyrant?
That's the modern characterization of Napoleon -- so much so that the psychological community actually came up with the term "Napoleonic complex" in the early 1900s to describe someone who has an overbearing personality to make up for his physical stature.
As you might expect, conservatives also had a less than flattering view of the controversial cover.
A post at Red Alexandria stated: "Considering that President Obama acts like a totalitarian socialist, this depiction is spot on."
The Lonely Conservative summarized his view of the controversy by asking: "Is it any wonder this rag is going under?"
Finally, Chiles viewed the matter from a unique perspective.
In the end, General Obama is likely to not worry much about the Newsweek depiction as he has more important matters to occupy him, such as the running of the globe.
Give me a break! And the staff at Newsweek wonders why copies of the magazine haven't been flying off the shelves. After this controversy, I dread seeing what the final print edition will have on its cover. We can only tremble in fear until then.
