I don't usually put much stock in columnists. But one guy has a pretty good track record--and on this I think he nailed it---Jonathan Alter--Web exclusive 14 July 2008 (Newsweek).

The cover is definitely harmful to the Obama campaign.   Frogprince--in his up-to- the minute example-- confirms exactly what Alter says.

Alter's example is quite telling:

"Leslie Stahl covered the Reagan White House for CBS News. One day in 1984 she broadcast a five-minute (extremely long for TV news) blistering report on how President Reagan was cutting funding for public health and for children with disabilities. After it aired, the late Richard Darman, a top Reagan aide, called and said: "Congratulations! We loved it."

"Stahl was dumbfounded. The piece had been a hatchet job".

"Nobody heard what you said," Darman told her. The pictures Stahl had used to "cover" her story were of Reagan cutting ribbons at hospitals and speaking at the Special Olympics. The White House knew that these warm images spoke a lot louder than anything Stahl was reporting."

"In the same way, the New Yorker cover, now being displayed endlessly on cable TV, speaks louder than any effort by Obama supporters to stop the smears....negative images burn their way into the consciousness of voters in ways that cannot be erased by facts."

If anybody doubts this, what is the most well-known context in which voters know Dukakis, if they remember him at all? My guess would be him in the tank.

And Frogprince's example confirms this principle yet again.