Photoshop is a great tool. It lets you do just about anything to a photo. You can make yourself look thinner, air brush your hair and make up and even create an image that’s not there.
That’s right – and that fact didn’t escape our esteemed former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi. This is priceless – so get ready.
According to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle, Pelosi wanted to capture the epic moment when white men in the Democrat caucus of the U.S. House of Representatives were outnumbered by women, gays, Asians, Latinos, and African Americans. She held a press conference announcing the proud moment where she was photographed with women Democrat members only.
The drama appeared when Pelosi decided to make up for four Democrat women caucus members who were absent. First, the original photo was posted from the steps of the U.S. Capitol just after the swearing in ceremony. Then, Congresswoman Pelosi posted another photo on her Flickr account where the four absent members were air brushed in. She defended the action saying that it was freezing outside (true, it is cold in Washington in the winter) and that they had waited for everyone to show up.
Reports are that Democrats are optimistic that the minority leader will count votes a little better than she counted heads in these photos:
Before (AP) and After (Flickr)
San Francisco Democrat and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi’s proudest accomplishment in the November election was a new caucus where women, gays, Asians, Latinos and African Americans outnumber white males. It is the first time in history that white men have been outnumbered in any Congressional caucus. Pelosi often heralds her party’s diversity efforts by citing San Francisco and saying “the strength is in the mix.”
But at her press conference Friday, she found herself Friday defending a doctored photo of diversity. The photograph of women Democrats, taken Thursday with the swearing in of new Congress and posted on her Flickr website, showed four extra House Democratic women who were not in the original photo.
They had arrived late. Their images were inserted into the photograph.
“It was an accurate historical record of who the Democratic women of Congress are,” Pelosi said. “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.”
Pelosi praised the diversity of the caucus, saying “we were pretty excited about it.”
Read the rest of the story by Carol Lochhead in “Below the Beltway”here.
Photo Credit – San Francisco Chronicle, Below the Beltway
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