"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."

What's more powerful perhaps, images burn their way in the UNconsious or SUB conscious minds of those who view them.

Jonathan Alter (echoed by Thom Hartmann and others in the progressive camp) has hit the nail on the head.

Barack Obama, I believe, is a savvy enough politician to avoid making some of the same image-related mistakes made by Dukakis (in the tank), John Kerry (wind surfing; duck hunting in camouflage clothing, Al Gore (trying to laugh off the rumor that he had claimed to have "invented the internet"), etc.   But a fat lot of good it does him when his self-proclaimed supporters give the media and the opponent's campaign their own destructive images?