The New Yorker magazine cover was not the first caricature of Sen. Barack Obama to raise howls about insensitivity, even racism. And it's safe to assume, regrettably, that it won't be the last.

Let's be honest: The current discomfort about the portrayal of Obama in satire, comedy and caricature - the wickedly irreverent realm of American politics - has much to do with the arrival of the first person of color as a presumptive major-party nominee.

This is a work in progress for Americans.

Count me among those who regarded the New Yorker magazine cover as a brilliant, funny, richly ironic satire on fears about the Obamas that certain right-wingers have been trying to exploit. In satire, context is everything. For those of us who grab the New Yorker from our mailboxes every week, there was little doubt about artist Barry Blitt's intentions. Exaggeration past the point of absurdity is the satirist's tool. If too much explanation is required, the irony is lost to the literal.

The reaction to the New Yorker cover suggests that it didn't work for many Americans. Fine. One of the truisms of satire is that it doesn't always work when it pushes the envelope, but it's never great when it plays it safe. I give the magazine credit for trying.

My larger concern is the broader timidity about subjecting Barack Obama to the pointedly creative forces in editorial cartooning and late-night comedy. He is no longer merely a state legislator or even one of 100 U.S. senators. He is about to become a major-party nominee for president. In other words, he's fair game for what Jon Stewart described as the "carrion birds" of late-night comedy. "We're sitting up there saying, 'Does he seem weak? Is he dehydrated yet? Let's attack.' "

So far, the late-night comics have pulled their punches on Barack Obama.

Editorial cartoonists have been only slightly less restrained. On July 8, we ran what I thought was a pointedly effective editorial cartoon by Pat Oliphant about Obama's post-primary shifts to the center. The four-panel cartoon showed Obama leaping from one side of the road to the other. Several readers called to complain that the cartoon exaggerated Obama's thin profile and large ears. It did; that's what caricatures do. Was it critical of a specific aspect of a politician who was otherwise in sync with the cartoonist's belief? Yes, equal-opportunity criticism is what the good ones do. Was it racist, as some callers suggested? I think not.

More calls and e-mails came after Wednesday's editorial-page cartoon by Signe Wilkinson showed a "thin-skinned" Obama raining tears over the New Yorker cover. Was it literally true? No. One reader suggested that "good satire is supposed to be an extension of the truth, not based on a falsehood." I must note that, while Obama declined to comment, his campaign spokesman (before the cover even came out) did denounce it as "tasteless and offensive. And we agree." By the way, a note to offended Obama supporters who might have missed Thursday's editorial cartoon by Nick Anderson: Republicans did not literally offer flag pins to victims of the devastated economy. It wasn't really fair, either, but it was a strong cartoon. So were the cartoons by our own Tom Meyer that portrayed Hillary Rodham Clinton as a dinosaur, Bill Clinton as a hyena, John McCain as an old man, or myriad caricatures of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney as, well, less than reverential.

I am well aware of the history of editorial cartoons or "jokes" being used to fan fears of immigrants or to demean women and African Americans. There is a need to recognize the distinction between perpetuating stereotypes and skewering an individual for his or her actions.

Barack Obama must not be allowed a free pass from the satirists. It would not be healthy for his campaign, or for the evolution of race relations in this society.

It's a distinct sign of progress that so many Americans have transcended racial barriers to embrace Obama's messages of hope. The next step will have arrived when we can laugh at his foibles and contradictions with neither fear nor self-consciousness.