Just when you thought the New Yorker Obama cover controversy had started to die down, along comes Governor David Paterson to fan the American flag-fueled flames. At an NAACP gathering earlier today, Paterson strongly condemned the illustration, calling it "one of the most malignant, vicious covers of a magazine I have ever seen… They knew it would hurt people; it was designed to do that and also to feed the prurient interest of bigoted, prejudiced people in this society.” Not to be outdone, the NAACP released a statement decrying the illustration as "tasteless, Islam-a-phobic, mean spirited and racially offensive."