After all the hubbub over The New Yorker’s cover featuring the Obamas, the magazine’s Condé Nast rival Vanity Fair has posted on its blog a version featuring John and Cindy McCain. The blog post reads:

“We had our own presidential campaign cover in the works, which explored a different facet of the Politics of Fear, but we shelved it when The New Yorker’s became the ‘It Girl’ of the blogosphere. Now, however, in a selfless act of solidarity with our downstairs neighbors here at the Condé Nast building, we’d like to share it with you. Confidentially, of course.”

And, of course, this isn’t an actual Vanity Fair cover; just one created so that people like me would post something about it.

Many found the Obama cover offensive, including both the Obama and McCain campaigns. Do you find the McCain one offensive, as well?

The Obama campaign calls it “tasteless and offensive.” The McCain campaign agrees. David Remnick, The New Yorker’s editor, told The New York Daily News: “Our cover … combines a number of fantastical images about the Obamas and shows them for the obvious distortions they are.” The cartoonist, Barry Blitt, defends his work at The Huffington Post: “I think 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.”

What do you think of the illustration on The New Yorker’s July 21 cover, which hits newsstands today? Should it be written off as pure satire, or does it wrongly reinforce certain negative stereotypes of the Obamas?