what's a meta for?

I think an important point is being overlooked in the matter of the PhotoShopped picture of troops featured in the "Whatever It Takes" Bush advertisement. All of the commentary I've seen is focused on the fakery of the photograph, the cloning and transplanting of a couple of small groups of soldiers to make a stronger visual statement. That, in and of itself, is no big deal. We are bombarded every day by faked marketing images that are simply designed to be more evocative than reality, we are fairly inured to it, and most people are aware that reality and advertising are not the same thing. Restaurant advertisements feature images of food that is either completely fake or has been so altered to look good as to be inedible to the point of being poisonous, and nobody has any real problem with that, and the food industry is very open about the practice.

No, the problem is not the "enhanced" image of the crowd of soldiers. The problem is the Bush team's reaction to the exposure of the fakery, which they should have realized was inevitable. The campaign has passed the buck to an anonymous "editor" who they say just went a little too far in doing his job. If that is the case, why did the official(s) in the campaign who run this sort of stuff APPROVE the use of the photo? Would they have us believe that in the last week of the most hotly contested election in many years that they weren't paying any attention to an important campaign advertisement, one of their "closer" ads? Once again, these scoundrels have proven that they are incapable of accepting responsibility for their actions and they have demonstrated how contemptuous they are of the voters, and how stupid they obviously think the people of this country are.

I hope they are wrong.