Bad for Obama

I understand what the New Yorker was going for with this cover, but I wonder if their NYC vantage has blinded them to the realities of the current political landscape. Now, I wouldn't call David Remnick et al. naive, per se, but for this image to work well as satire it'd need to exaggerate certain aspects of the Obama smear campaign, not conform exactly to what his crazy, ignorant detractors claim.