COVER WARS: Health Care, Health Care, Everywhere

Judd Apatow was going to be on the cover of Time this week (and he’s still in the issue for his latest film Funny People), but health care is on the tip of everyone’s tongue so the funnyman got subbed out for President Obama in a lab coat. It’s entirely possible that if we picked up this issue of Time we’d learn nearly everything we need to know, or could stand to know, about the ongoing health care debate. But where’s the pop?

Mediaite Grade (B): We’re not sure if Obama is (a) staring off into space, (b) gazing optimistically, (c) watching anxiously or (d) listening to somebody talk about something really boring — Hey, maybe they’re talking about health care.

All in all: Too much white space. Strange palate of blues. And we would have known it was Time‘s “Health Care Special Report,” even if they didn’t tell us so in block caps twice on the cover. But seriously: Now is the time to talk about health care, a topic that tends to get really boring really fast. If Time wanted to make this health care report really special, they would have jazzed up the cover.

The Economist pans-out from the health care debate to draw attention to the greater pressures on Obama right now; economic downturn, economic recovery, Afghanistan, Iraq, Bud light, Blue Moon — health care is just one of many pressures threatening to make or break his reputation these days. Sounds kind of like First 100 Days redux. Maybe international readers didn’t have to suffer through all that legacy talk the first time around?

Mediaite Grade (A): We can’t blame The Economist for replaying 100-day coverage because, the American news media was a little premature and extravagant back in the spring. Plus The Economist’s cover is playful, and handsome to boot. The stars and stripes scheme beautifully balances the foreground and background, playing off Obama’s shirt and tie to keep him looking crisp — not at all a cardboard cutout (as we’ve seen so many times before). And we especially love the baby blue, because nothing says ‘crunch time’ like baby blue.

What’s a beauty queen doing on the cover of the National Review. Not just any beauty queen, but ex-Miss California Carrie Prejean! Oh, silly us — we forgot that beauty pageants are where all the substantive marriage debate is going on. And don’t worry, health care makes an appearance on the top right: A doctor gets swept away by a mysterious tentacle, labeled “Obamacare’s Threat.” The tracking here is way too loose. Just one of many problems…

Mediaite Grade (D): Regardless of each of our own political predilections, surely we can all come together and shudder at the double negative on the cover of the National Review: “Why gay marriage isn’t inevitable.”  William F. Buckley, Jr. would mess his pants if he saw that sort of writing on the cover; “[W]e are, without reservations, on the side of excellence (rather than “newness”) and of honest intellectual combat (rather than conformity),” no more.  Although, for what it’s worth, we’re pretty sure that WFB II would have really dug that sensual text-wrap around Carrie’s leg.

Remember that New Repubic cover shot of Obama and Hillary’s would-be she-man-child, HillarAck? Well, Hillary and Barack are on the cover again, joined this time by Biden, Rahm, Richard Holbrooke, Tom Donilon and Jim Jones. But somehow the fun police at TNR found a way to make the Happy-Fun crew look like demon spawn.

Mediaite Grade (B-): Dear, The New Republic, please send more androgynous freak children because your foreign policy cover is terrifying. The photographs at the bottom look like stills from Apocalypse Now. And we’ve never seen Obama look so evil.

We have to say that we don’t mind the absence of health coverage on the cover, especially when we’re getting “Who Runs U.S. Foreign Policy?” Or as the National Review would say, ‘Who’s Not Uninvolved in U.S. Foreign Policy?’

COVER WARS WINNER: Say what you want, but The Economist cover is thoughtfully designed, simply put and, on the whole, flawlessly executed. Obama appears to understand the gravity of his own situation more than anybody else; none of the flat, non-living Time Obama, or the glaring, hellfire New Republic Obama. Plus, baby blue takes guts.

Quick postscript for the National Review: Get a design director. Fast.