ChotaDon

Barack Obama to the New Yorker: It’s your right but you weren’t right. In his first substantive talk about the magazine’s inflammatory cartoon depicting him and his wife as fist-bumping terrorists, Obama told CNN’s Larry King the image fueled misconceptions and insulted Muslim Americans.

“I know it was The New Yorker’s attempt at satire. I don’t think they were entirely successful with it,” Obama said. “But you know what? It’s a cartoon … and that’s why we’ve got the First Amendment.”

The presumptive Democratic nominee said he wasn’t personally stung by the cartoon.

“I’ve seen and heard worse,” Obama said. “[Still], in attempting to satirize something, they probably fueled some misconceptions about me instead.”

“But, you know, that was their editorial judgment,” Obama added. “Ultimately, it’s a cartoon, it’s not where the American people are spending a lot of their time thinking about.”

Obama has spent the better part of the past 18 months debunking false Internet rumors that he’s Muslim and defending his patriotism. He’s Christian, but Obama said he’s been derelict in pointing out how hurtful these attacks are to Muslim Americans.

These fallacious e-mails and The New Yorker cartoon are “actually an insult against Muslim Americans,” he said. There are “wonderful Muslim Americans” across the country, Obama said, and “for this to be used as sort of an insult, or to raise suspicions about me, I think is unfortunate.”

“It’s not what America’s all about,” he said.

The magazine’s editor, David Remnick, said the cartoon is satirizing the lies about the Obamas.

A spokeswoman for the magazine said yesterday she could not provide any data on this week’s sales, but anecdotal evidence from magazine retailers suggests the controversy has bumped sales.