Editor David Remnick defended the cover in an interview with the Huffington Post: "What I think it does is hold up a mirror to the prejudice and dark imaginings about Barack Obama's — both Obamas' — past, and their politics. I can't speak for anyone else's interpretations, all I can say is that it combines a number of images that have been propagated, not by everyone on the right but by some, about Obama's supposed "lack of patriotism" or his being "soft on terrorism" or the idiotic notion that somehow Michelle Obama is the second coming of the Weathermen or most violent Black Panthers. That somehow all this is going to come to the Oval Office."

Many people consider The New Yorker to be the best, most substantive magazine in America, this writer included.

This is not the first time the New Yorker, once the most twee of publications, has courted controversy with its cover art. They've had clerics of opposing religions in an embrace, gay covers, as well as enough anti-Bush and -Cheney to stuff a book.

Jeffrey Goldberg, a former New Yorker staffer, wrote at Atlantic.com that the July 21 cover was "exceedingly funny."

People are talking, which I suppose is the point. It's doubtful this will garner new readers while soliciting cancellations from long-time subscribers. The content of the publication is still unrvialled. I look forward to reading Ryan Lizza's presumably less saticial report on Obama inside.

This is, afterall, what many know nothings think about the Obamas so it challenges this in a visceral reaction. Your reaction?