NEW YORK: Barack Obama s campaign expressed outrage over a satirical cartoon on the cover of The New Yorker magazine depicting the Democratic White House hope in Islamic dress beside a burning US flag.
The influential weekly defended its cover, titled The Politics of Fear, as a critique of unfounded allegations during the campaign that have attempted to paint Obama, who is Christian, as a closet radical Muslim.
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, Obama spokesman Bill Burton said.
But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree, he said in a statement.
The campaign of Republican candidate John McCain quickly condemned the cartoon, and the Arizona senator addressed it personally at a press conference, as the cover sparked intense political and journalistic debate.
I just saw a picture of it on television … I think it s totally inappropriate and frankly I understand if Senator Obama and his supporters would find it offensive, McCain said.
The Council on American Islamic Relations was also angry, saying the cartoon had failed to expose and lampoon right-wing caricatures of the Obamas.
These inflammatory images and spurious associations will only serve to reinforce the racism and anti-Muslim stereotypes that the magazine says it is out to challenge, it said in a statement.
The Obama campaign has fended off attempts to question the Illinois senator s patriotism and religion, creating a website, www.fightthesmears.com, to debunk false rumors against the candidate propagated online.
The cartoon drawn by Barry Blitt shows Obama and his wife Michelle standing in the White House s Oval Office with an American flag burning in the fireplace under a portrait of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Obama, who aims to become the first African-American US president, wears a robe and turban while his wife is in military fatigues with a Kalashnikov strapped to her back.
The couple also give each other a fist bump – a common greeting they have given each other in public but which a Fox News television presenter once called a terrorist fist jab.
Our cover The Politics of Fear combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are, said New Yorker editor David Remnick.
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, he said. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to prejudice, the hateful, and the absurd. And that s the spirit of this cover.
The editor noted that the magazine includes two very serious articles about Obama – a commentary and a 15,000-word reporting piece on the candidate s political education and rise in Chicago.
The cartoonist, for his part, defended his drawing.
I think the idea that the Obamas are branded as unpatriotic (let alone as terrorists) in certain sectors is preposterous, Blitt told the Huffington Post website.
It seemed to me that depicting the concept would show it as the fear-mongering ridiculousness that it is, he said. -AFP
