John Edwards ran his presidential campaign into the ground talking about the two Americas of the rich and the poor that not enough people — certainly not enough rich people — wanted to hear about. It is part of the irony of wealth in America that most well-to-do people do not see themselves as such; their idea of a Sophie’s choice is trying to decide whether to give up the country house or the SUV. My God, we might actually have to give up both!

But there are another two Americas that exist in this great land, as made clear by the stink over this week’s New Yorker cover. You know, it depicts Obama and Michelle as a pair of Muslim jihadists and black liberation soldiers, burning flags and giving each other what a former Fox News anchor called a terrorist fist jab.

The illustration, by long time New Yorker illustrator Barry Blitt, drew immediate condemnation from Obama’s camp, John McCain, and now a slew of New York politicians have piled on as well, gathering outside Conde Nast’s offices today to demand an apology. “It was offensive to the values that New Yorkers have, it was offensive to the values that Americans have, and it is beyond just an insult,” said State Senator Bill Perkins.

All of which has left the magazine’s editor, David Remnick, puzzled. “The intention is to satirize not Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, but, in fact, to hold a pretty harsh light up to the rumors, innuendos, lies about the Obamas that have come up — that they are somehow insufficiently patriotic or soft on terrorism,” he told NPR today. His tone of bewilderment is notable; he seems to be saying, Isn’t it obvious that this is a joke? We’re the New Yorker. What, do you think anyone here is going to vote for John McCain?

This may be one of the few times that Remnick finds himself on the same side of an issue as a commentator at Fox News, who couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about either. Which brings me to my two Americas theory: The point that both Remnick and Fox seem to be making was that it was obvious, given its context, that this was supposed to be a joke. But I bet if you took that same illustration and put in on Page Six of the New York Post most of that paper’s readers would have thought: “I knew that Obama was a terrorist.”

Yes, I know that Murdoch has gushed over Obama, calling him a rock star, and the Post, his flagship US paper, has been more consistently fair to him than, say, the NY Daily News. (Fox News, which still seems to be searching for new ways to slag the candidate, is also owned by Murdoch, of course, and they must not have got the memo.) But its readers are, shall I say, less acquainted with the brand of satire and irony that the New Yorker trafficks in. And in a general election where all kinds of people who don’t actually read much of anything will decide the outcome of the race, another image — even a patently false and humorous one of Obama dressed like Osama — just adds to the ignorance pile. It’s another America than the one Remnick inhabits and they are not reading his magazine, let alone checking the fine print for the satire disclaimer.