Obama campaign outraged by New Yorker cover

NEW YORK (AFP) — Barack Obama's campaign decried Monday a satirical cartoon on the cover of The New Yorker magazine showing the Democratic presidential hopeful wearing Islamic dress while his wife holds a Kalashnikov.

The influential weekly defended its cover, titled "The Politics of Fear," as a critique of unfounded allegations during the campaign that have attempted to paint Obama, who is Christian, as a closet radical Muslim.

"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.

The campaign of Obama's Republican rival, John McCain, took his side.

"We completely agree with the Obama campaign that it is tasteless and offensive," ...