Obama’s team condemns cartoon

Barack Obama\'s team has decried The New Yorker magazine for a cartoon cover depicting him in traditional Muslim garb and his wife as a terrorist.



The magazine said the cartoon is intended as a satirical comment about some of the distorted right-wing attacks on the Democratic senator.



An Obama campaign spokesman said the cartoon was tasteless and offensive.



A spokesman for John McCain, Mr. Obama\'s Republican rival in the presidential election, also criticised the cartoon.



The image, drawn by Barry Blitt and featured on the front cover of this week\'s New Yorker, shows Mr. Ocala wearing traditional Muslim dress, while his wife, Michelle, is dressed in combat trousers and carrying a machine-gun.



The couple is shown standing in the Oval Office, greeting each other with a fist bump, with an American flag burning in the fireplace, and a portrait of Osama Bin Laden on the wall.



In a statement, The New Yorker magazine said the cartoon combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are.