The original photo (AP Photo/Cliff Owen):
The altered photo (Pelosi Flickr feed):
A few years ago, the Newseum hosted a terrific exhibit called “The Commissar Vanishes,” which chronicled Soviet dictator Josef Stalin’s editing of official photos to eliminate Communist officials who had fallen out of favor with the mercurial tyrant.
The technology has advanced — we have Photoshop now, after all — but politicians still see a need to alter history.
That brings us to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
The Democratic leader found herself on the defensive today in response to charges that she altered a photo … to add four lawmakers who weren’t there.
The missing lawmakers — who arrived late for the photo — included Houston Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida. The doctored photo included the four absent representatives as a fictional top row of the photo.
“It was an accurate historical record of who the Democratic women of Congress are,” Pelosi responded today at a news conference. “It also is an accurate record that it was freezing cold and our members had been waiting a long time for everyone to arrive and … had to get back into the building to greet constituents, family members, to get ready to go to the floor. It wasn’t like they had the rest of the day to stand there.”
