Row over Obama terrorist cartoon 14/07/2008 - 13:59:45
A magazine cover showing Barack Obama dressed as a Muslim and his wife as a terrorist was dismissed as “tasteless and offensive” by the Democratic presidential hopeful today.
The illustration in the New Yorker is titled “The Politics of Fear” and depicts Mr Obama wearing traditional Muslim garb of sandals, robe and turban and his wife, Michelle dressed in camouflage, combat boots and an assault rifle strapped over her shoulder.
Both are standing in the Oval Office in front of a fireplace in which an American flag is burning. Over the mantle hangs a portrait of Osama bin Laden.
“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,” said an Obama spokesman. “But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”
The magazine’s editor, David Remnick, said in a statement to the Daily News in New York that he was surprised by the reaction.
The cover “combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them (the images) for the obvious distortions they are,” 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 the absurd,” he said.
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A magazine cover showing Barack Obama dressed as a Muslim and his wife as a terrorist was dismissed as “tasteless and offensive” by the Democratic presidential hopeful today.
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