Drudge reproduces a Fox News transcript in which Kerry campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill circumlocuitously claims NASA intentionally leaked the Bunny Suit pictures of John Kerry’s
visit to KSC:
CAHILL: …senator carr [sic] took a tour of a bio facility at nasa. it was just the two of them, and the nasa staff, and all of a sudden this is a leaked photo.
HUME: it was leaked?
CAHILL: yes.
HUME: it was made by nasa, right?
CAHILL: yes, it was.
HUME: so the campaign had no idea there would be any photographs.
CAHILL: none.
HUME: when it was agreed he would put on his th costume.
CAHILL: there was no press there. there was — nothing. all of the sudden these photographs are out.
And I bet the Senator was shocked, shocked to discover that someone had taken a picture of him…or perhaps he just posed for the pictures before he didn’t pose for them.
I think the pictures are amusing, but hardly a “Beetle Dukakis”-level embarrassment. I find it irritating, however, that a Presidential candidate would willingly pose for several pictures during a campaign stop and then be surprised and angry when those pictures later end up in public. What was/is the Kerry campaign thinking?
And is it me, or is it just a little bit paranoid to jump so swiftly to the conclusion that the “leak” of these “surprise” photos (for which he posed) is a “dirty trick”? It says a lot about the Kerry campaign that they would choose to make wild accusations like this rather than simply dismiss it with a shrug and “So what’s the big deal?” type of comment…responding this way only makes a distracting issue out of something quite trivial. On the other hand, that may indeed be the point.