(AP) - A satirical New Yorker
magazine
cover cartoon depicting Barack Obama and his wife as flag-burning,
fist-bumping radicals drew outrage from the Democratic presidential
candidate's campaign as it appeared on newsstands Monday. The
illustration, titled "The Politics of Fear and drawn by Barry Blitt,
depicts Obama wearing traditional Muslim clothing - sandals, robe and
turban - while his wife, Michelle, has an assault rifle slung over one
shoulder and is dressed in camouflage and combat boots with her hair in
an Afro.
A flag burns in a fireplace behind them as they exchange a fist bump,
the affectionate greeting they used onstage the night Obama clinched
the Democratic nomination. A Fox News anchor later referred to it as a
possible "terrorist fist jab." A portrait of Osama bin Laden hangs
above the fireplace.
The cartoon, which Obama's campaign said was "tasteless and offensive,"
is not explained inside the magazine. The issue, dated July 21, also
contains a 15,000-word story about Obama's political education and
early years in Chicago.
The cartoonist's previous covers include a drawing of President Bush
and his inner circle floating up to their elbows in water inside the
Oval Office, for an issue published just after Hurricane Katrina
ravaged New Orleans.
In a statement, the magazine said the cover combines "fantastical
images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they
are."
"The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the
fist-bump, the portrait on the wall? All of them echo one attack or
another," it said.
Obama, who is Christian, has long fought rumors that he is secretly a
Muslim. His wife has endured her own attacks, including ones that
claimed there was videotape of her criticizing "whitey" from a church
pulpit. The Obama campaign says there is no such tape because she never
spoke at a church.
The magazine said satire is part of what it does "to hold up a mirror
to prejudice, the hateful, and the absurd. And that's the spirit of
this cover."
New Yorker editor David Remnick told the Huffington Post Web site that
the cover was chosen because it had something to say.
"I can't speak for anyone else's interpretations, all I can say is that
it combines a number of images that have been propagated, not by
everyone on the right but by some, about Obama's supposed 'lack of
patriotism' or his being 'soft on terrorism' or the idiotic notion that
somehow Michelle Obama is the second coming of the Weathermen or most
violent Black Panthers. That somehow all this is going to come to the
oval office," Remnick said.
Asked about the cover on Sunday, Obama said "I have no response to
that."
His spokesman, Bill Burton, said: "The New Yorker may think, as one of
their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of
the caricature Senator Obama's right-wing critics have tried to
create," Burton said. "But most readers will see it as tasteless and
offensive. And we agree."
Obama's opponent, Republican John McCain, concurred that the cover was
out of bounds, calling it "totally inappropriate, and frankly I
understand if Senator Obama and his supporters would find it offensive."
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent who has supported
Obama's fight to debunk the rumors, said even humorists need to be
careful.
"We all have to watch very carefully what we say - our attempts at
humor, our attempts at informing people - because some of what we say
can be misinterpreted and do real damage," he said.
John McLaughlin of TV's Sunday morning political roundtable show "The
McLaughlin Group" referred to Sen. Obama as an "Oreo" during a
broadcast over the
weekend.
While discussing
recent comments made by the Rev. Jesse Jackson about Obama, McLaughlin
said to his panel: "Question: Does it frost Jackson, Jesse Jackson,
that someone like Obama, who fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as
an Oreo -- a black on the outside, a white on the inside -- that an
Oreo should be the beneficiary of the long civil rights struggle which
Jesse Jackson spent his lifetime fighting
for?"
Panelist and Council
on Foreign Relations senior fellow Peter Beinart answered: "Who knows
what Jesse Jackson is thinking? But that's a completely unfair
depiction of Barack
Obama."
Later in the show,
Michelle Bernard, president of the Independent Women's Forum, said: "I
want to go back to the point you made about whether or not Obama is an
Oreo, because if Barack Obama is an Oreo, then every member of this
generation of African-Americans is an Oreo, because we stand on the
shoulders of the people who fought for our rights, and all of us say
that you cannot blame 'the man' or white racism for everything that
ails the black community.'" [View the entire "Oreo" exchange below.]
(AP) - A satirical New Yorker
magazine
cover cartoon depicting Barack Obama and his wife as flag-burning,
fist-bumping radicals drew outrage from the Democratic presidential
candidate's campaign as it appeared on newsstands Monday. The
illustration, titled "The Politics of Fear and drawn by Barry Blitt,
depicts Obama wearing traditional Muslim clothing - sandals, robe and
turban - while his wife, Michelle, has an assault rifle slung over one
shoulder and is dressed in camouflage and combat boots with her hair in
an Afro.
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