Could this photo be the 2004 equivalent of Dukakis in the tank?

I never knew that Dukakis picture had been digitally altered. Thanks for the scoop, Rand.

:-)

It's not just the flower, lame as it is. He's carrying SKI gloves (they have FINGERS), he isn't wearing a beanie, his undergarment doesn't hang out below his jacket, his clothes aren't misshapen and faded, and worst of all, HE'S NOT WEARING ANY DUCT TAPE. John Kerry is no snowboarder.

Hey, cut him some slack. I'll bet he smokes weed.

Before I clicked through to look at the pictures I was sure you were referring to President Bush in his flight suit. When I saw that on TV I remember thinking he looked as idiotic as Dukakis in the tank :)

As for Kerry's flower, keep in mind that we're still early in the election cycle. Both candidates have plenty of time to embarass themselves. I don't think this flower picture is going to get full play.

"Before I clicked through to look at the pictures I was sure you were referring to President Bush in his flight suit. When I saw that on TV I remember thinking he looked as idiotic as Dukakis in the tank :)"

Bush WAS a pilot. Dukakis was NEVER a Tanker.

What is so funny about a pilot in a flight suit?

"A man wearing a flower? I say, that goes contrary to every stereotype I believe in. This is obviously a sign of weakness."

Please.

Shameless republican propaganda.

You can see where they pasted in the image of the flower if you examine the less significant bits of the image.

I know some people would love this to be true, but since it's a graphical lie posing as real is it really fair to circulate it?

Bush WAS a pilot. Dukakis was NEVER a Tanker.

LOL. That day President Bush was a passenger for a staged event that was a photo-op. Dukakis was sitting high and pretty in the tank but he wasn't a tanker. That was a photo-op that backfired spectacularly.

By your reasoning, Bush 41, who was an athlete at Yale, should have shown up in a Yankees uniform to throw out a cermonial pitch at a baseball game.

President Bush was a passenger, not a pilot, on the day of the carrier photo-op. He didn't need to affect the swagger of a top gun to deliver his message. It had cheap gimmick written all over it and I was as embarassed for him as I was for Dukakis. You'll notice that his campaign hasn't used that imagery yet.

"By your reasoning, Bush 41, who was an athlete at Yale, should have shown up in a Yankees uniform to throw out a cermonial pitch at a baseball game."

Non-Sequitr

Bush was never in Major League Baseball, he was a pilot in the armed services of which he IS now commander-in-chief.

He earned the right to wear that flight suit as he previously earned his wings.

Dukasis never earned that CVC Helmet he was wearing and quite proabally never wore one in his life prior to that day.

Kevin Parkin -
Wow. I was completely unaware that the Associated Press was in the habit of photoshopping their news images. At least, the credit for that particular photo is going to "AP Photo/Elise Amendola", on wbur.org - http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2004/03/20040325_a_main.asp

There's a smaller copy of the image at this NPR site, and the daisy is in it.

Don't take my word for it.

Put the image into Photoshop, and you should be able to see the lesser significant bits in the image using the image->adjust->curves feature. You should see a square appear around the flower.

You decide.

Interesting article about on-line image forgery:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/text/2001868223_paul01.html

Amazing that the Associated Press would stoop to photoshopping a plastic daisy onto John Kerry's outfit, just to make him appear less manly... kind of blows the whole 'liberal media' theory out of the water. Even more amazing is that the Associated Press could get away with this, and such defenders of the truth like NPR would be taken in by the deception and run the photo on their sites.

You just can't trust anyone any more, I guess.