Anyone remember Jill Greenberg, the far left photographer who deliberately made children cry for photographs so she could depict them as victims of the religious right? Her rationale was along these lines:

I also thought they made a kind of political statement about the current state of anxiety a lot of people are in about the future of the country. Sometimes I just feel like crying about the way things are going.

I was shocked, though, to see today that Greenberg has gone mainstream in a big way. The Atlantic hired her to take the most unflattering photos possible of John McCain for their cover (to which they've added words like "porn" and "adultery" in a plausibly deniable manner), and she's decided to take the photos and embellish them. McCain thought he was posing for The Atlantic, but it turns out he was being used in a sinister game of cheap political trick photography.

...what we see here is a candidate for President showing up at a photo-session for a cover shot for a magazine he knows is not going to give him an Obama-pass, but still making time for it. Waiting for him is the contracted representative of that magazine, Jill Greenberg, who has literally set a trap for him and then lures him into it. She mocks the McCain staff for not being "very sophisticated" about lighting when, in truth, the lighting used for a professional photo session is very complicated. There are umbrella lights, fill spots, and a raft of others being used at any given time.

I imagine that Ms. Greenberg was in full charm mode with Senator McCain at the same time she was executing her little partisan plot. Indeed, I am certain she was nothing other than sweetness and light to him. What she was doing was quite another thing, a vile thing. Simply put, it was betrayal for a cheap political frisson for her.

Then Greenberg extended the betrayal to her Client, The Atlantic. She either did not deliver all the images of the shoot to the client or she began to manipulate them for her own uses as seen above. In this digital age, she probably ftp'd the images to The Atlantic, kept the originals on her own system, and then made the cheap and disgusting photoshops seen above.

It is certainly deceptive and slimy. Greenberg has upped the ante from her previous trickery with children to "political pornography" and gotten ahead in the process.

But was it really a betrayal of The Atlantic? In view of the fact that they let someone with Greenberg's known background negotiate a two-week embargo in order to re-license the images (in a supposedly arms-length transaction), I'm having trouble seeing The Atlantic as her victim:

The Atlantic didn't select the diabolical looking McCain for its cover. Greenberg is hoping to license that image to some other magazine (she negotiated a two-week embargo with The Atlantic so she could re-license images from the shoot before the election).

Warned that the image is just the kind of thing that will stir up the anti-media vitriol in the conservative blogosphere, Greenberg said, "Good. I want to stir stuff up, but not to the point where I get audited if he becomes president."

That said, she goes on to explain that she's thought about replacing McCain's mouth with bloody shark teeth and displaying the image on a billboard with the message that the candidate is a bloodthirsty war monger.

Given her strong feelings about John McCain, we asked whether she had any reservations about taking the assignment in the first place.

"I didn't," she says. "It's definitely exciting to shoot someone who is in the limelight like that. I am a pretty hard core Democrat. Some of my artwork has been pretty anti-Bush, so maybe it was somewhat irresponsible for them [The Atlantic] to hire me."

So I may be wrong in my suspicions, but right now it's hard to see The Atlantic as anything but Ms. Greenberg's turn-a-blind-eye collaborator in this venture. They lent their still respectable name to the photoshoot, lured McCain in, and the predictable result is this:

(Soon to be on the billboard, of course...)

But really. Is it reasonable to expect a photographer who deliberately made children cry as pawns in her partisan antiwar crusade to be upfront and honest with John McCain?

I'd say shame on The Atlantic, but what's the point?

There's not even a pretense of journalism anymore.

MORE: A priceless comment from Bill White:

What the heck is a "warmongerer"? Someone who does something to warmongers?

(Normally I'm not one to especially care about errors, but imagine the outcry if Bush called Ahmadinejad a "warmongerer.")

UPDATE: Via Glenn Reynolds, The Atlantic has apologized. And they're even considering suing:

"The editor of The Atlantic Monthly said Monday he is sending a letter of apology to John McCain after a woman the magazine hired to photograph the Republican presidential nominee posted manipulated pictures from the photo shoot on her Web site. . . . Editor James Bennet said Greenberg behaved improperly and will not be paid for the session. He said the magazine is also considering a lawsuit."

I mean really. I've complained a lot about "demonization" by the MSM. The problem with the Jill Greenberg stuff is that it's the real thing.

Literally.

Looking at the above picture makes me think that the word "demonization" has lost its sting. I've used the word so long that when the real thing comes along, it seems inadequate.

(Hyperbole can become a form of crying wolf.)

And I'm glad to see that The Atlantic has taken a stand against demonization.