Keywords: Obama, Muslim, Black, president, New Yorker, stereotypes, terrorist, flag burning, first black president, black president

Satire? That's The New Yorker's blanket defense for its controversial cover depicting Sen. Barack Obama as an American-flag-burning, Osama-Bin-Laden-loving Muslim intent on taking up residence in the White House. Michelle Obama isn't spared either, as she's portrayed as a machine-gun-toting, 60s-style-Afro-wearing radical. In short, the cover plays on every ugly, misinformed stereotype the Obama campaign has been battling for the past year.

And of course, there's the fist bump the couple shared the night he effectively clinched the nomination … which FOX News suggested was a "terrorist fist jab." Seriously. But ask The New Yorker about it and their defense falls under one word: satire.

The Obama campaign made it clear they felt otherwise. "The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the caricature Sen. Obama's right-wing critics have tried to create," said Obama spokesperson Bill Burton in a statement. "But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

The John McCain camp agreed it was out of bounds, telling The Associated Press it was "tasteless and offensive."

Former Democratic Congressman Harold Ford Jr., who is Black, criticized the cover on the "Today" show Monday, saying: "It's curious that a magazine would go to this length to make this kind of a statement when a portion of this country, particularly in Midwestern and rustbelt states, still believe Barack Obama, because of Internet campaigns, wrongly believe he may be a Muslim, and they equate that with terrorist activity."

Click here to see the full "Today" show video.

Amina Rubin, a spokesperson with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), also condemned the cover. "I think the efforts by The New Yorker and others we've seen are really playing off of and exploiting existing anti-Muslim sentiment in our country. We agree with both campaigns that the cover is tasteless and offensive," she says. "It looks more like it was done to promote controversy and get media attention than to try and make a serious political point."

Rubin acknowledged that repeated insinuations that Obama is Muslim place him in the awkward position of having to profess his Christianity without appearing to smear those of Muslim faith.

"As we see in our work, there's still a very concerning amount of anti-Muslim sentiment in our country, which can be used as a fear tactic by political groups who are looking for ways to harm a candidate," Rubin says. "It's unfortunate that saying he's a Muslim could be used as a smear, and we should take a look at what that means in our society."

Despite the repudiation of many of these rumors, a Newsweek poll released last week shows that they still persist. "Some of Obama's lag in white support may be explained by continual confusion over his religious identity. Twelve percent of voters surveyed said that Obama was sworn in as a United States senator on a Quran, while 26 percent believe the Democratic candidate was raised as a Muslim and 39 percent believe he attended an Islamic school as a child growing up in Indonesia," reports Newsweek. "None of these things are true."

DiversityInc has debunked many false rumors that cropped up over the course of Obama's primary battle, including the mistaken belief that he is Muslim, as well as allegations of Obama being anti-Israel, unpatriotic, or simply not Black enough.

The false rumors and innuendo reached such a crescendo that last month the Obama campaign started a web site just to deal with them.

In response to the controversy, The New Yorker Editor David Remnick told AFP that the cover "combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are," he said. "Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out in the open."

Readers' Comments

 Next