NEW YORK, Oct 2, 2008 (AFP) - Venerable US magazine The New Yorker came out in favor of Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama in its edition this week.

In a lengthy article signed 'The Editors,' the news magazine gave its reasons for supporting Obama and showered withering criticism on current President George W. Bush and Republican candidate John McCain.

'At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness,' the article said.

'It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader's name is Barack Obama.'

In 2004, the magazine endorsed a presidential candidate for the first time in its 80-year history, urging readers to vote for Democrat John Kerry in his doomed run for the White House.