YEs, it is intended as satire. But good satire has to both stir up the illogical thing it is satirizing, and add enough humor to cause the illogic to be rejected. In this case, the satire was obvious but was too pale to cause (IMO) the reader to reject the ridiculousness of the satirized thing. Thus, bad taste instead of a cracking good cover; and it was a close call, too, really--the eds at NY were surprised all to hell when they got the backlash.

A