A recent poster of President Obama depicted as Heath Ledger's Joker character from the film, The Dark Knight, is causing quite a stir.

Popping up in numerous places like subways, walls and city streets around the Los Angeles area, the image appears along with the caption, "socialism," printed at the bottom of the poster.

Although the individual responsible for the poster has not yet been identified, he/she has been lauded and upbraided from people on both sides of the party line.

Earl Ofari, president of Los Angeles Urban Policy Rountable condemns the poster as uncouth.

"Depicting the president as demonic and a socialist goes beyond political spoofery," says Hutchinson, "it is mean-spirited and dangerous."

Conservaive radio host and commentator Rush Limbaugh drew the parallel between this and a 2008 cover of Vanity Fair that painted George W. Bush in a similar light.

"I actually think Obama is in the process of becoming a caricature. I do," said Limbaugh, who has been one of Obama's hardest critics since his election. "They're saying this is racist...the very people who spent seven years mocking everything about George W. Bush telling us how to assassinate him in books, doing movies about his being assassinated, calling him Hitler are just outraged about this, but there's nothing racist about this Obama poster."