Today the talk is of the New Yorker cover showing the Obamas in the White House, a satirical look at all the fear tactics used against them by the right wing.

Barack Obama is wearing a turban and is in Muslim dress—reminiscent of the photo showing him in Somali tribal clothes. Michelle Obama has combed out her hair, has a rifle slung over her shoulder and is giving her husband what Fox News called a “terrorist fist-jab.”

For the finishing touches, there’s an American flag burning in the fireplace, Osama bin Laden’s portrait hangs over the mantle.

The Obama campaign does not like it.

“The New Yorker may think, as one of their staff explained to us, that their cover is a satirical lampoon of the cariacture Senator Obama’s right-wing critics have tried to create,” his spokesman, Bill Burton, said in a statement. “But most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive. And we agree.”

I’m not sure about tasteless and offensive. I think it does exactly what the New Yorker’s editor, David Remnick, says it does: It skewers Obama’s supposed lack of patriotism and being soft on terrorism, his wife’s alleged radicalism.

I think it’s funny. But of course, there’s a stubborn group of people who insist on believing Barack Obama is Muslim no matter what. A Newsweek poll released on Friday found that 12 percent of the people say he was sworn in as a U.S. senator on a Quran. Twenty-six percent continue to say he was raised as a Muslim.

So you can understand why the Obama camp might not like this cover.