Some conservative blogs are having fun with this photo today:

Ha, ha!  Look at the dummy trying to get the umbrella through the gate!

I took one look and knew exactly what was happening.  Obama is not trying to shove an umbrella through a gate frame.  The umbrella is too wide to go through the gate unless he closes it and his wife gets wet.  He is obviously preparing to pass the umbrella from one hand to the other over the gate.  A movie would reveal this instantly, but I don’ t have one.  What I did find was a sequential photo:

Bingo. Other hand up, ready to grab the umbrella.  Exactly what I would have done if I didn’t want to close the umbrella and let my wife get wet. Awkward, to be sure, and he could use another few inches of reach, but not the “dummy photo” it’s plugged as.

Never trust a still photo of a “moment in time” when somebody has an axe to grind.  This includes the mainstream media, not just blogs.

I brought this subject up during the 2004 election, where similar “moments in time” were being touted, with both Bush and Kerry as victims. Remember Kerry and the gun range? Bush and the binoculars?