New Yorker magazine branded 'tasteless and offensive' for depicting Obama in a turban and his wife as AK47-toting terrorist

The illustration on the latest issue of The New Yorker shows the 46-year-old Presidential hopeful in traditional Muslim dress.

His wife, Michelle, 42, has an AK-47 assault rifle strapped across her shoulders and sports the sort of Afro hairstyle popular with the Black Panther 'freedom fighters' of the 1960s.

Inflamatory: The New Yorker magazine cover has sparked a storm of protest in the U.S.

The couple are shown bumping fists - similar to the way they did on the campaign trail while Mr Obama was seeking the Democrat nomination - in front of the fireplace in the Oval Office. Above the mantlepiece is a portrait of Osama Bin Laden.

An American flag is burning in the hearth.

The liberal U.S. magazine has insisted that the cartoon is meant to satirize opposition slurs on Mr Obama, and is not itself an attack.

But after months of fighting off religious smears and misconceptions about their candidate as he attempts to make history as his nation's first black President, the Obama camp failed to see the joke.

During his primary battle with Hillary Clinton, Mr Obama - whose middle name is Hussein - went to great pains to point out that a photo of him in white robes was taken on a trip to Africa and not the Middle East.

Mrs Obama has also faced attacks over her patriotism and unfounded rumours that she used the derogatory term 'whitey'.

Inspiration: Democrat hopeful Barack Obama bumps fists with his wife Michelle on the campaign trail

Obama spokesman Bill Burton said: '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, but most readers will see it as tasteless and offensive - and we agree.'

The Left-leaning magazine, famous for its political cartoons, came out with the controversial cover days after Newsweek released results of a poll that proved the misconceptions among voters about Mr Obama.

It showed that 26 per cent of Americans believe he was raised a Muslim and 12 per cent thought he sworn into Congress on a Koran. Neither is true.

Republican White House candidate John McCain also denounced The New Yorker. 'I think it's totally inappropriate and I understand if Senator Obama and his supporters would find it offensive.'

And the popular Huffington Post blog site said: 'Anyone who's tried to paint Obama as a Muslim, anyone who's tried to portray Michelle as angry or a secret revolutionary out to get whitey, anyone who has questioned their patriotism, well, here's your image.'

New Yorker editor David Remnick defended the cover, saying it was meant to ridicule the lies about the Obamas.

'Our cover combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious-distortions they are,' he said.

'The burning flag, the nationalist-radical and Islamic outfits, the fist-bump, the portrait on the wall - all of them echo one attack or the other. Satire is part of what we do, and it is meant to bring things out into the open, to hold up a mirror to the absurd. And that's the spirit of this cover.'

Cartoonist Barry Blitt defended his illustration, saying: 'I think that the idea that the Obamas are branded as unpatriotic, let alone as terrorists, in certain sectors is preposterous.

'It seemed to me that depicting the concept would show it as the fear-mongering ridiculousness that it is.'

However, Andrew Malcomb, of the Los Angeles Times said: 'A lot of people won't get the joke. Or won't want to.'