Somebody Please Give Larry Downing a Raise

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney speaks during his keynote address to the U.S. Labor Department's 2006 National Summit on Retirement Savings at the Willard Hotel in Washington March 2, 2006. REUTERS/Larry Downing

I'm mortified that I'm a week late on the above totally unretouched photo of the VP by one of my favorite Condirazzis.

UPDATE: Can we talk about this photo some more? It's been posted everywhere by now, and some people like Matt Drudge are calling it intentional. Well, long-time Pony Pals have been seeing Larry Downing's work for Reuters (he's frequently on the State Department/Condibeat)
for some time now, and he's one of the photographers we've noticed doing provocative and arty things with the framing when Condi gets too boring (I specifically called him out here for doing that, and other examples are here and here). So, yeah, I'm sure Downing knew full well that the photo contained a loaded word, but... there it was, right in front of him. Isn't it his job to capture provocative shots? Also, he most likely took a whole roll of Cheney at the podium. If there's one thing we all know about, it's podium shots, right? He must have shot it from every angle. So don't blame Larry. The news services which picked up the shot from Reuters? Well, I mean... how could they resist such an inflammatory shot? Don't forget that the media has a bias not toward the left or the right, but toward conflict.