Barack Obama today changed his official campaign hand signal, ending a debate that has raged for weeks among senior Team Obama members. The current hand signal, both hands forming the letter "O", will be replaced by a gesture requiring a single hand. The new Obama salute is to make the letter L out of thumb and first finger on the forehead.

"The L stands for Liberal," said a spokesman for Obama. "Liberal isn't a dirty word any longer. Barack said that he saw the gesture made by some students at a college visit to the Campus Democrats, and he liked it so much he's decided to incorporate it. Because we don't just have the courage to change, we have the courage to use a good idea that's already out there."

The old symbol had also come under fire recently for being discriminatory against people who only had one hand. John Hook, a spokesman for the non-profit group Helping Hand, said he was glad to see the old symbol jettisoned. "How are one-handed Americans who support Obama supposed to make the salute to the captain if they have a hook for a hand? They can't, and that's wrong. So I'm glad that it's been sent to Davey Jones' locker where it belongs. If I could just catch those Lost Boys everything would be ship-shape."

The move also ended what had become deafening mockery of the symbol, not only from right-wing pundits but from other celebrated iconoclasts who used heavy symbology in their work.

"I never liked it as a symbol," said Don Diego de la Vega. "It has no flair, no zip. How can you use a simple O to cut off a woman's bodice and reveal her heaving bosoms? You can't. The letter O is in the middle of the alphabet for a reason: it is boring. Now, a scarlet pimpernel, or a gigantic paean to a crippled firefighter brother; those are sheer genius!"

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