There You Go Again
Both TPM and Matt Yglesias have noted the cover of the latest issue of National Review, which features a crude caricature of Sonia Sotomayor as a Buddhist monk -- or perhaps she's supposed to be the Buddha, or the Dalai Lama. It isn't clear, and the headline ("The Wise Latina") doesn't make a lot of sense when paired with the artwork.
Putting Sotomayor on the cover of the magazine was clearly going to be a problem for NR. Juvenile caricature is what passes for humor in conservative publications; nevertheless, depicting Sotomayor as a loud-mouthed, menudo-eating Puerto Rican cleaning lady probably would create more problems than the magazine could handle.
Lowry and company apparently decided that depicting her as an Asian was the next best option. It allowed the NR to yuk it up over a religious and ethnic stereotype (foolish, slanty-eyed pagan!) without directly attacking her religion (she's Catholic) or ethnicity (she's Latina).
I guess the cover doesn't bother me that much because broad ethnic and religious stereotypes have been NR's stock-in-trade from the beginning. Remove the crude caricatures from the magazine's 50+ year history, and all you'd have left would be a few pounds of chemicals.
