Sometimes I post about things before others, sometimes after. This is a an "after" post. Several people have blogged about a somewhat weird article in the Washington Post that discussed the picture frame surrounding the photograph of Zarqawi. I really wish I was making this one up.
The frame surrounding an image of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's head, revealed to the world as proof the terrorist is dead, is bizarre. When the picture was displayed at a U.S. military news briefing, Zarqawi's face was seen inside what appeared to be a professional photographic mat job, with a large frame, as if it were something one might preserve and hang on the wall next to other family portraits. One function of frames is to bound an image, and close down its open edges; frames delimit, both physically and by extension, metaphorically. But that was the last thing this frame was doing.
Mr. Kennicott, the reporter presumably took this as his "angle" on the story. Angles are very important for journalists. It gets one noticed. And it worked for Mr. Kennicott. He got noticed.
By Mark in Mexico, Hugh Hewitt and The Sundries Shack among a lot of others. Mark has some different frames for Mr. Kennicott's approval, by the way.
But what Mr. Kennicott seems to miss here is that American forces treat the dead terrorist, who beheaded a number of people and killed countless others through his barbarity with sufficient respect to frame his death shot in a nice, matted, almost artistic format.
Instead of putting his head on a pole.
Oh, that’s funny! His head should have been put on a pole.