SCOTT: The photo on the front page of The New York Times showing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan has gotten a lot of comments this week. One soldier seen in his boxers, leading many to ask why the Times even decided to run the photo.
[...]
SCOTT: Your thought, Jim?
PINKERTON: Well, let's just ask ourselves: If Jesse Jackson were photographed in pink underwear --
THOMAS: Ew.
PINKERTON: -- would the Times -- or Al Sharpton or David Dinkins or Barack Obama, would the Times ever use it on the front page? And the answer is: of course not.
THOMAS: Well, Obama is always photographed naked from the waist up.
PINKERTON: The point is, the Times would -- the Times feels a certain license to make what they think of as gentle fun of the military on the front page. And having said that, so clearly, that's where the Times is coming from -- liberal, liberal --
VOICE: Oh, no, no, no.
PINKERTON: But, it was a good picture. It is kind of funny with the “I love New York” thing. I can see why the New York papers -- a New York paper would like that. And I must say I think back to the scene in the film Flags of Our Fathers, about the Marines who raised the flag at Iwo Jima, and one of them -- mothers says, “I recognize my son up there,” and says: “Well, you know, It's his bottom,” says, “Look, I wiped that bottom when he was young. I know my son.” And in fact, it was one of the flag-wavers, flag-raisers.
