MRC's Dan Gainor alerted us that Ben Smith of the Daily Signal tweeted out a shocking visual: the New York Times front page on Sunday cropped George W. and Laura Bush out of its photo of a Selma anniversary march. They cropped it just to include President Obama. (Notice the Bushes didn't try to crowd right next to the president to get into the frame.)
Hmmm NYT crops out Laura and W Bush pic.twitter.com/S9BW5J3Fu3
— Ben Smith (@bmcsmith92) March 8, 2015
And a fuller shot:
From @jeffmason1: The Obama family and Bush family join marchers to cross Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge. pic.twitter.com/NuMMx4F3XS
— WSB-TV (@wsbtv) March 7, 2015
The online story by Peter Baker and Richard Fausset doesn't have column-inch limitations, but its photo, too, excludes the Bushes. They did make the story after ten paragraphs:
Joining Mr. Obama on Saturday was former President George W. Bush, who signed the reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in 2006, as well as more than 100 members of Congress. About two dozen of them were Republicans, including the House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy of California. While sitting onstage, Mr. Bush made no remarks, but rose to his feet to applaud Mr. Obama, and the two men hugged afterward.
Baker and Fausset took roll call for other politicos:
Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican majority leader, did not attend, nor did most Republican presidential candidates, who were in Iowa campaigning. But the Republican-led Congress voted to award the Congressional Gold Medal to the “foot soldiers” of Bloody Sunday as “an expression of our affection and admiration for those who risked everything for their rights,” as Mr. Boehner put it.
Several prominent Democrats were missing, too. Former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is preparing to run for the White House next year, were in Miami for an event sponsored by the Clinton Global Initiative.
But at least the Clintons cropped themselves out of the Selma picture! It would be nice to contact the Times public editor Margaret Sullivan and have her ask around to see which editor thought it was a good idea to trim out the Bushes.
PS: The Conservative Treehouse notices Debbie Wasserman Schultz also played the Times Crop Game...
