Remember how the New Yorker's Barack Obama cover was supposedly going to confuse a certain class of voter over whether Barack Obama is a legitimate, Democratic candidate for U.S. president or flag-burning muslim terrorist? Everyone sort of pictured these gullible souls as poor, uneducated whites, but the joke's on us, because the caricature has pushed no less a political sophisticate than MSNBC's Chris Matthews into a pit of stuttering confusion. Talking about the cover on Hardball tonight, Matthews suffered a severe relapse of his notorious Obama/Osama condition. Symptoms include calling Obama by the name of terrorist Osama bin Laden; referring to bin Laden as "Obama" and flashing on-screen pictures of one dude when talking about the other. Click the thumb to see which one happened tonight. HOPE YOU'RE HAPPY NEW YORKER FASCISTS. [Huffington Post]

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama spent an entire day with a reporter for Us Weekly who asked "boxers or briefs" and other similarly pressing questions. The Times is kind of in a snit about it because when Us had Hillary Clinton in its pages, it was to have her make fun of her own worst outfits. Actually, the Hillary story was pretty fun compared with Obama's profile, where he comes across fairly vanilla, which is like a deadly sin in a celebrity magazine. Nevertheless, he does make fun of Stevie Wonder bumbling into things, which is kind of cool, and you'll never ever guess what his favorite TV show is:

HARDBALL with Chris Matthews pulled the ol' Osama/Obama mix-up last night. In an onscreen graphic, no less! Verbal slips are one thing, but how the hell does this make it from the graphics department to the air without anyone noticing? Is poor Chris the only person running the show? Clip below.