Jul 14, 2008 5:17 pm US/Central
New Yorker's Obama Cover Creates Uproar
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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The July 21, 2008, issue of The New Yorker magazine showing Barrack and Michelle Obama as terrorists is shown on a streetside rack in New York City on July 14, 2008.
CBS
The New Yorker called it satire, but the Obama campaign wasn't laughing Monday after the magazine's latest cover portrayed the Democratic presidential candidate as a Muslim and his wife, Michelle, as a terrorist.
CBS 2 Political Editor Mike Flannery has reaction to the controversial caricature.
There were negative reviews aplenty on the streets of Chicago when a reporter displayed the provocative cover cartoon, with Michelle Obama as a rifle-toting 1960's-style radical, her husband in Muslim clothing. The cartoon shows them standing in the Oval Office, with an American flag in the fireplace and Osama bin Laden's portrait on the wall.
Malcolm MacDonald said, "I think maybe the New Yorker's a joke on this one. They could bury it inside somewhere, but they're trying to be sensational."
A spokesman for Obama's campaign denounced the cartoon as "tasteless and offensive," but the New Yorker simply called it satire of fear-mongering lies about Obama.
We want to know what you think of the cartoon.
Send us your comments here. While Obama himself declined to comment, his Republican opponent weighed in. Republican John McCain said, "I think it's totally inappropriate and frankly, I understand if Senator Obama and his supporters would find it offensive."
Chicago's Second City comedy troupe recently poked fun at the Illinois senator's and his Presidential campaign in a show called "Between Barack and a Hard Place."
Obama and his wife reportedly laughed when they went to see it, despite one arguably offensive skit in which the Hillary Clinton character discusses hiring a hit man to target Obama.
Second City VP Kelly Leonard said, "Clearly, the cover of the New Yorker is all about getting to a greater truth with the stereotypes that are being perpetuated across the country."
Jack Higgins, a Pulitzer Prize-winning political cartoonist for the Chicago Sun-Times said, "I looked at it and I thought, I don't get it. Is it supposed to be funny? Because it's not. It seems sort of mean."
Higgins said he thought the cartoon fails as satire because it requires too much explanation. "A good cartoon shouldn't need an explanation; it should hit you within a few seconds," Higgins said.
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