Pictures Do Lie

This is one of my more subtle photoshops, I think. pic.twitter.com/qz3JkNTsFU

— John Ekdahl, Jr. (@JohnEkdahl) August 15, 2013

I apologize to readers for an apparent imprecision. In a recent essay on the Benghazi scandal, “The Mother of All Scandals,” I wrote, “We saw minute-by-minute pictures of Obama in command surrounded by advisors during the bin Laden raid. Why not the same level of photographed attention on the night of Benghazi?”

Yet from the photographs and press coverage, many of us assumed that Barack Obama was glued to the monitors watching the bin Laden raid minute-by-minute in contrast to the news blackout about his inattention to the unfolding Benghazi disaster.

I was apparently wrong. In a recent interview, Reggie Love, the so-called “body man” who served as official go-fer to the president, said of the bin Laden raid:

“Most people were like down in the Situation Room and [the president] was like, ‘I’m not going to be down there, I can’t watch this entire thing.’ So he, myself, Pete Souza, the White House photographer, Marvin [Nicholson], we must have played 15 games of spades,” former Obama aide Reggie Love said at an event in Los Angeles sponsored by The Artists & Athletes Alliance in July.

Kicking back with a card game versus monitoring the most important event of his presidency (e.g., “Bin Laden is dead, and General Motors is alive!”) — well, no contest.