Obama campaign calls New Yorker cover offensive

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign has sharply criticized The New Yorker magazine over the publication's latest cover illustration, which appears to portray the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and his wife as terrorist enemies of the United States.

The New Yorker cover published Sunday shows Barack and Michelle Obama with a flag burning in the fireplace.

The cover, published Sunday, shows Obama in the Oval Office dressed in traditional Muslim attire. His wife, Michelle, wears an Afro hairstyle and has a machine gun slung over her back. An American flag can be seen burning in the fireplace, and a picture of Osama bin Laden hangs on the wall.

"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," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said in a statement. "But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree."

Sen. John McCain's campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said he agreed with Burton's sentiment.

Obama refused to comment on the illustration Sunday.

The cover is linked to a feature article about the senator from Illinois' formative political years in Chicago.

But not everyone finds the illustration over the top.

Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page told CNN's "Reliable Sources" on Sunday that the cover "is just lampooning all the crazy ignorance out there."

"I remember a few years ago, when The New Yorker had a cover at a time of great black-Jewish tension in New York. You had a cartoon of an obvious Orthodox Jewish male kissing a black woman, and this created a lot of buzz," Page said. "That's what it is, buzz. It's discussion. It's talk. And that's what covers are supposed to do."

Liberal radio talk-show host Laura Flanders told CNN's "American Morning" on Monday, "I think the Obama campaign made a misstep here. They should have come out strongly endorsing this cover.

She said, "This isn't a jab at them, terrorist or any other kind. This is a jab at the media. ... It should be cause for our conversation to focus on the kind of fear mongering that the media and people on the right have engaged in."

Conservative talk-show host Joe Pagliarulo agreed. "I think this could be a very positive thing for the Obama campaign," Pagliarulo said. "I think they've got to embrace this and say 'Look, there are rumors out there.' I talk to people every day, like Laura does. People really do believe ... that he's a Muslim. They believe he was sworn in on the Quran. They believe that his wife is unpatriotic and so is he."

A Newsweek poll released Friday showed that 12 percent of those polled believed Obama was sworn in as a U.S. senator on a Quran, and 26 percent believed that he was raised as a Muslim. Neither is true.