While the Obama campaign depicts the ontogeny of Organism McCain as the phylogenetic recapitulation of Species Bush, aka “running for Bush’s third term,” one has to wonder how McSame will respond.
Perhaps he will take a page out of the old (and not so old) Kremlin playbook, as mentioned in Monday’s NY Times editorial titled Airbrushed by the Kremlin, Again, which begins thusly:
Years ago, Soviet news agencies grew to be experts in removing unwanted comrades from official photographs. People disappeared in the developing rooms just as they disappeared in real life, and early group photos with Stalin often contracted into a picture of the Soviet dictator standing alone. That grim history makes what happening today on Russia’s national television networks all the more chilling.
As Clifford Levy wrote in The Times last week, Russia’s national networks, the most powerful media in the country, are routinely deleting news or opinions critical of the Kremlin. In one notable case, Mikhail Delyagin, a well-known political analyst, criticized Vladimir Putin during the taping of a talk show. When the program aired, Mr. Delyagin was missing. Or, most of him was missing. His disembodied legs remained in the picture.
How long, then, before we start seeing images like this:
