NEW YORK – The photograph showing President Barack Obama and staffers in the
White House Situation Room carefully watching the raid in progress by US forces
in Pakistan on the bin Laden compound last Sunday has been published far and
wide.
One Hassidic paper in Brooklyn, however, has chosen to alter the
photo – excising Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and another female staffer
from the picture.
RELATED:US: Bin Laden compound was al-Qaida command center'CIA surveilled bin Laden compound for months'First reported in the blog failedmessiah.typepad.com,
the photoshopped picture was published in the Yiddish newspaper
Der Zeitung (The
Time) on Friday, with empty spaces where Clinton had been sitting and where the
female staffer had stood.
The photograph was released by the White House
with the following imprimatur: “This official White House photograph is being
made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal
use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be
manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials,
advertisements, e-mails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval
or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White
House.”
Manipulations of the already-iconic photograph, however, have
proliferated on Facebook, but those generally fall under the umbrella definition
of satire and parody. However, the Der Zeitung edit is the one edit of the photo
that has appeared in the context of the press.
While Der Zeitung had no
comment as to why it altered the picture, many conjectured that it was either
because of concerns about immodesty, or strong feelings that women should not be
in positions of power.
“This is a bit silly,” one commentator wrote at
failedmessiah. “Secretary of State Clinton was not dressed immodestly. There was
no intent of objectification in the photo. Haven’t the editors got something
better to do?”