And now….the Internet mystery of the day. Is that REALLY a naked woman reflected in Vice President Dick Cheney’s sunglasses? No hunting, shooting, fly fishing — or Viagra — jokes puh-leaze.
Perhaps it’s more of a reflection on the Internet and how many Americans (new media, old media and consumers of the media) want to vet anything. Here’s the photo that has launched thousands of Google searches:
So this photo can be seen in a disclosed location. McClatchy Newspapers reports:
Since Wednesday, the blogosphere has been atwitter over a photograph on the White House Web site of Cheney with a caption that said he was fly-fishing on the Snake River in Idaho.
The photo is a tight shot of Cheney’s face sporting dark sunglasses and his trademark grin.
What’s stirring all the buzz is the reflection in the vice president’s dark glasses. Some thought that the reflection looked like a naked woman and, this being Cheney and this being the Internet Age, they immediately shared that thought with the world.
In a Google search for the words “Dick Cheney” and “sunglasses,” 79,300 hits came back at mid-afternoon on Thursday. By 7 p.m., the count was 130,000.
On DemocraticUnderground.com, the discussion starts with this question: “Notice anything … interesting … reflected in his sunglasses? Something that has little to do with conventional ‘fly-fishing’?”
But it didn’t stop there, the newspaper chain reports:
It wasn’t just the blogosphere. On a Web site called sportsshooter.com, dedicated to sports photography, professionals also did a double take and debated the shot on their message board.
…AOL’s Political Machine online column gave readers a chance to vote on what was reflected in the vice presidential shades. The four choices were:
* Hot babe sunbathing.
* Alien overlord.
* That’s not Dick Cheney.
* The image was Photoshopped.
Add your OWN interpretation in comments….
And how did the Veep’s office react? You can predict this one, can’t you: without humor.
Clearly the picture shows a hand casting a rod,” grumbled spokeswoman Meagan Mitchell.
As journalists, however, the word of an official spokeswoman isn’t good enough.
So McClatchy/Tribune Information Services photo editor George Bridges used the latest digital technology to enlarge the picture, took a close look at Cheney’s sunglasses and concluded that Mitchell was telling the truth.
The image is of the vice president’s hand on his fly rod.
Fly rod? Uh oh…
But wait, that isn’t what you (with the dirty mind) think:
“In one lens of his sunglasses you can clearly tell it is a sleeved arm of Cheney or a fishing companion. The other lens has an extreme distortion that, without looking at it closely, could be misconstrued,” said investigative photo editor Bridges.
Oh.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.