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| By Israel Insider staff July 15, 2008 |
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Barack Obama's campaign expressed outrage over a satirical cartoon on the cover of The New Yorker magazine that portrays the Democratic candidate and his wife fist-bumping in the oval office. He is in Islamic garb and she is dressed as a terrorist, with military fatigues and a Kalashnikov rifle slung over her shoulder. The wall is adorned with a portrait of Osama bin-Laden, and an American flag is burning in the fireplace. If the cultural magazine was hoping to provoke attention, it succeeded.
The publication defended its cover story, titled "The Politics of Fear," as a critique of unfounded allegations during the campaign that have attempted to paint Obama as a closet radical Muslim. The campaign was not amused. "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.
He founded an ally in Republican candidate John McCain, who condemned the cartoon: "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 miffed: "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.
Obama, who aims to become the first Arab-American US president, wears a robe and turban while his wife is in military fatigues with a Kalashnikov strapped to her back.
"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 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. |
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