On one hand, I get it. It's satire... and at any other time and context (besides right before the election) the satire would be crystal clear and without major political consequence.

This isn't a matter of whether or not to say these things, it's WHEN. Commonsense. If you want your mixed-race abroad living muslim name sounding uppity black man from the ivy league graduating to win the presidency of the U.S. of A, you simply can't afford to fan the flames of people's racist stupidity right before the big day.

At the same time, it's not as if something like this and worse wasn't bound to happen during the campaign anyway. Maybe this was the New Yorker's way of heading Obama's bigoted critics off at the pass... but PSYKE... bigots love attention, and attention is validating. Who knew!??