In a July 13 online poll, the conservative website WorldNetDaily.com asked readers to "[s]ound off on the New Yorker's cover with turban-wearing [Sen. Barack] Obama, gun toting wife [Michelle Obama]" by choosing one of 12 options, including the factually baseless options: “Funny, because there's some truth in it” and “The image isn't too far from the dangerous truth about the Obama family.” While the New Yorker said in a press release that its cover “satirizes the use of scare tactics and misinformation in the Presidential election to derail Barack Obama's campaign,” for a majority of respondents to WND's poll, the cover apparently provided support for their false perceptions of Obama's religion and patriotism: As of 10:07 a.m. ET on July 14, the most popular option in the poll -- selected by 60 percent of WND respondents -- was “The image isn't too far from the dangerous truth about the Obama family.” The second-most popular option was “Funny, because there's some truth in it,” which was selected by 11 percent of respondents.
WND's online, non-scientific poll received the following results as of 10:07 a.m. on July 14:
The New Yorker's July 21 cover:
As Media Matters for America has noted, Obama has frequently been the target of false attacks about his religion. Other attacks have targeted Obama's patriotism and suggested Michelle Obama may be a "black militant." As Media Matters also noted, Fox News host E.D. Hill suggested the Obamas' June 3 on-stage “fist bump” could be interpreted as a "terrorist fist jab."