David Draiman rips Rolling Stone a new ass!

Now, if you ask people what Rolling Stone is, I can guarantee you that they will say things like "A magazine of culture", "A pop culture magazine" or a "major source for the shaping of pop culture". You will NOT hear "a magazine of serious journalism".
I understand what you're saying. However, you're ultimately suggesting that because people are not smart enough to realize what RS is, RS should behave accordingly? To use your analogy, that's like saying Manowar should start worshiping Satan because most people already think they do.

By putting Tsarnaev on the cover, they are trying to position him like they positioned Charles Manson: into a millennial pop culture icon.
They're really doing no such thing. They're writing a story about a kid, who by all outward appearances seemed as American as any other kid his age (listening to rap, smoking pot, on the wrestling team, going to college, hanging with girls, etc.), yet was capable of committing an atrocity. All of his friends still miss him, they're still confused by this. They're all is such shock, that many of them prefer to accept the conspiracy theories. So this is a discussion that needs to happen. And it's too bad if it ruffles the feathers of people who prefer to see the world as black and white, or it bothers people who want to presuppose what shape journalism should come in. Truth be told, if we lived in a culture where people talked more about the content than the cover, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. Which isn't at all directed at you. It's just a general observation.
 
Just a reminder, RS has covered politics before. Maybe not in the way the mainstream does, but they do perspective pieces, that look more towards the background than what's given to us otherwise. This article is quite in line with many of their past perspective pieces, so I'm really not getting the issue. It's definitely something RS would, and has done in the past, not completely unlike NewsWeek.