Obama Camp Rips New Yorker Caricature

Barack Obama's campaign has ripped an "offensive" New Yorker cover illustration depicting the candidate in a turban, fist-bumping his afro-sporting, AK-47-toting wife, Politico reports. The cover, intended by the magazine to lampoon the cartoonish image of Obama propagated by some of his right-wing critics, has sparked a flurry of denunciations.

The cover, an illustration entitled "The Politics of Fear," by Barry Blitt, may be intended as a satire, said a spokesman for the Obama campaign. “But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive—and we agree." Even John McCain's camp is condemning the cover as “tasteless.” But not all are outraged. “It's just lampooning all the crazy ignorance out there," writes Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune. (More Barack Obama stories.)