New Yorker magazine depicts Obamas as terrorists

Critics are lashing out at the New Yorker magazine for a new cover depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as Islamic terrorists.

The magazine features a cover illustration called "The Politics of Fear," in which the Democratic presidential nominee and his wife are shown wearing traditional Muslim garb in the Oval Office of the White House.

In the Barry Blitt illustration, Michelle Obama is depicted with a huge Afro and shown wearing combat boots and fatigues with an assault rifle over her shoulder as she "fist bumps" her husband. Barack Obama is shown winking at the viewer while wearing Muslim headdress and outerwear. An American flag is shown being burned in the fireplace and a portrait of Osama bin Laden hangs above the mantle.

The Obama campaign called the cover art "tasteless and offensive." Even the McCain campaign criticized the cover art as offensive. But New Yorker editor David Remnick "seemed shocked by the backlash," according to the New York Daily News.

Remnick said the cover "combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are." In a statement, the editor added: "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. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to the absurd. And that's the spirit of this cover."

Reaction Is Swift And Outraged

Obama the candidate declined to comment about the cover, but others were outraged. "It's the most gross, sick and pathetic attempt at satire I've ever seen in my life," writes columnist Maggie Van Ostrand. "Shame on The New Yorker for stooping so low to increase their circulation, which must be in the toilet, where it belongs," she adds.

AlterNet columnist Don Hazen describes the magazine's decision as "arrogant and indulgent" and says the cover "turns the magazine into a potential Molotov cocktail, to be gleefully tossed by Fox News and the conservative blogs, into the already combustible tinderbox of race and muslim stereotypes just below the surface of America's public discourse."

And another critic described the cover as "gutless." "If artist Barry Blitt had some real cojones, he would have drawn the same cover but shown it as a word bubble coming out John McCain's head -- implying, you see, that this is how McCain wants the world to view Obama," said columnist Kevin Drum in a CBS News blog.

"But he didn't. Because that would have been unfair. And McCain would have complained about it. And for some reason, the risk that a failed satire would unfairly defame McCain is somehow seen as worse than the risk that a failed satire would unfairly defame Obama," Drum wrote.

But Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page called it "quite within the normal realms of journalism." Speaking on Howard Kurtz's CNN media program on Sunday, Page said the cover is "just lampooning all the crazy ignorance out there."

The magazine goes on sale today.