From Axios…
Nice.
There have been a lot of iconic or otherwise memorable photographs of Presidents over the decades that placed a sitting POTUS in a positive or sympathetic context. They were all liberally used to promote that President’s leadership and popularity. Such as…
and…
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If any photo editor in those years had been so vile as to suggest that a striking photograph of a news event presented too positive an image of our nation’s President and should be suppressed, he either did it in private, or had his head bashed in with a rock shortly after doing so, and thank God for that. To those who will argue, and I know depressingly large numbers of my Trump-Deranged relatives and friends who will, that Trump’s post ear-shot photos are”different” because Trump was deliberately posing to show defiance for his political advantage, my retort is, “Bite me.” Every one of those Presidents above might very well have done the same thing if they had had the opportunity after an assassination attempt. It isn’t isn’t merely a well-composed photo, it is also, like the photos above, genuinely revealing about the character of the man in the picture.
Deal with it.
The New York Times already cropped one of the almost identical photos to lessen its positive impact when the paper first published it. These really are, as Trump so sagely and courageously said, “enemies of the people” as well as enemies of democracy. If they can distort their reporting sufficiently to make Trump lose, they will. They tried in 2016, and they succeeded in 2020. They will try again.
I am not happy or sanguine about the prospect of Donald Trump being President again for many reasons. But I am ecstatic about the prospect of the Axis of Unethical Conduct being defeated, foiled, exposed and crushed, which a decisive Trump and Republican victory will do. These awful, unethical, anti-democratic people deserve not just to lose, but to be humiliated. They might even learn something.
In a memorable scene in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969), and old sheriff who has been a friend to Butch and Sundance is appealed to for help by the charismatic outlaws as they are being pursued by a relentless posse. The sheriff (played by legendary Hollywood acting coach Jeff Corey) tells them there is no hope. “Your times is over and you’re gonna die bloody! And all you can do is choose where.”
The biased news media that has decided it should be able to decide who leads this country by distorting, withholding, manipulating and misstating facts and the news deserves to “die bloody,” metaphorically of course. I fervently hope they do.
Oh…here’s one of those photos they hate, and like it or not, it has already entered the pantheon of iconic Presidential photos. (I almost said, “shots”):
ADDED: Here’s the first version of the photo(s) the Times had on the front page. Can’t have that American flag in the shot! Too positive!
[Funny: WordPress’s bot tells me I should tag this post “Joe Biden.” Do you see Biden mentioned anywhere above?”]
Ethics Alarms 
Make no mistake. Just because the news media is forced to cover President Biden’s declining health and lucidity, as well as the attempted assassination of former President Trump, doesn’t mean that it has any intention of becoming more objective and fair-minded when it comes to this election.
I made the mistake of daring to compare that picture to.famous flag oriented pictures like the Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima or the firemen hoisting the flag over Ground Zero. Immediately I was inundated with how-dare-you posts saying those guys were heroes and this guy is a criminal who doesn’t even deserve to be in the same frame. TDS of the most virulent.
“These awful, unethical, anti-democratic people deserve not just to lose, but to be humiliated.” True, but it won’t happen. They are incorrigible.
“They might even learn something.” Why? They already know everything.
If by some miracle I don’t see happening (the ballot boxes are already stuffed and sitting in warehouses all over the “swing states”), it will be like Groundhog Day. It will be 2016 all over again. The AUC will go bonkers and then the FBI and the DOJ and all the usual suspects will immediately implement the various plans they already have in place and have been strategizing to knee-cap the Trump Restoration. That’s the downside of a Trump win. It will be the outsider against D.C. and D.C. will prevail.
I’m reminded of the 2000 movie, Gladiator –
In which Commodus does everything he can to undermine Maximus’ popularity with the masses. But everything he does only makes Maximus more popular.
He eventually breaks down whining “Now they love him for his mercy! And I can’t just kill him because then I’ll look even more unmerciful!”
It feels like the media is at that breaking point where every dishonest thing they try only convinces more people to give Trump a chance.
The media could simply just try being honest and let the chips fall where they may. They may still lose this great competition, but they won’t lose as badly.
Jeez, give me time to rescue your comments from Spam! You don’t have to repeat them—I’ll get to them, I swear!
Sorry!
This used to happen periodically awhile back and it was completely my browser at fault and usually would be repaired after a couple of upload attempts.
But I guess now it’s just a Word Press-ism.
Can you post the cropped photo, because I know you have referenced it but I am not sure I know which one it is.
(Maybe add it below the one in the post.)
-Jut
It’s the one zoomed in, so the stars aren’t visible on the flag, making it look less like the flag is flown in distress.
The one I’ve seen eliminates the flag entirely.
And there’s this unbiased reportage from Joy Reid:
MSNBC star Joy Reid pumps more conspiracy theories about Trump assassination attempt: ‘That seems really unusual… it’s weird’ | Daily Mail Online
And conservatives are always described as tin hat lunatics?
Don’t make me say it.
<i>The New York Times already cropped the photo to lessen its positive impact when the paper first published it.</i>
In fairness – it isn’t the same photo. It’s a different photo, likely from another camera / photographer. The angle is different, but it’s pretty clearly of the same moment. I would suggest they used this alternative photo because they had the rights to it and/or it was cheaper, given the originally seen photo is immediately iconic. So, again, in fairness, I don’t think we should be stating that they “cropped” the iconic photo. They aren’t the same.
….and obviously I didn’t realize we weren’t hard-coding our formatting anymore… lol
They still cropped out the flag, and it looked lousy. I guess I should say “iconic photos.” As with the Times Square kiss, there were several shots that are essentially the same.
BUT I’ve corrected the text to reflect the existence of several such photos.
Per Jut’s request, I added the Times version of the photo they used. I think its pretty clear that the paper left out the flag by design.
They don’t want people to be contrasting that photo with an iconic one of Biden:
https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2023/08/30/ap21078784290794-dee19ff21d6d74323921be4441ad84f54718c4fc.jpg
I do vote to nominate the Red Biden speech podium photo to the post.
The press has always been like this. How much truth has been hidden because it would help the “wrong people”? We’ll never know.