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(This post turned out longer than intended, but rest assured I do get to the AP photo bias eventually)

Despite not being back to normal blogging capacity, I am (for the most part) keeping up with everything. I just happened to glance at the Drudge Report, and saw that he was linking to this AP story on Yahoo! News, about Iraq vet and double amputee, Army Staff Sgt. Christian Bagge, making good on a promise to jog with President Bush at the White House.

The story is just one of those rare "nice" stories put out by the MSM and definitely deserving of a read. Now, I would only be speculating on Bagge's politics if I was to say he's a conservative or that he supports the war in Iraq, etc. But I think that it's a relatively safe assumption. Why else would he want to jog with the President, after losing both feet, and most of one leg in a war that the President sent him to? Either way, his character and his attitude to not let his injuries stop him is extremely admirable, which is why I wasn't surprised that lefties like the DailyKos kids haven't posted on it.

No matter what side of the aisle a person is on, this "can't keep a good dog down" story is something we should all read and keep in mind when we sweat our own minor problems that don't even come close to comparing with what this man has been through (yes liberals, he is a MAN, not a kid, no matter how many times you say so). Again though, no surprise that the left doesn't care about this story. After all, where would they find the time? The left is too busy being cheerleaders for fake Iraq vets and deserters. But here's the long and short of the Staff Sgt. Bagge story anyway:

The president met the soldier on a New Year's Day visit to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, where Bagge had been recuperating from his injuries for months. Bagge, now 23 and a native of Eugene, Ore., was in a convoy hit by roadside bombs a year ago in the remote Iraq desert south of Kirkuk.

Bagge's left leg was amputated just above the ankle, and his right leg ends just above the knee.

He told Bush during their January visit that he wanted to run with him. Bush was an avid runner who had mostly traded the activity for mountain biking in the last couple of years because of knee problems.

"I looked at him, like, you know, there's an optimistic person," Bush said. "It's an amazing sight for me to be running with a guy who, last time I saw him, was in bed wondering whether or not — I was wondering whether or not he'd ever get out of bed."

Read the rest here.

Anyway, as with all these AP via Yahoo! stories, you can click the small photo that is included to be taken to an AP slideshow. I did to see if there were any more photos of this soldier and the President, and there were a handful, in a slideshow made up of 107 total photos. The photos of Staff Sgt. Bagge and President Bush were all okay, but once I was out of that group I saw the usual photos taken just at the right fraction of a second to make the president look like he's making a strange face or throwing up the Heil Hitler. Nothing new there though.

What I found this time obviously doesn't rise to the level of the subliminal messages like the Rove/Exit photo, or the Cheney/Retire photo, or even the shrinking President Bush photo (to name just a few). This time Senator John McCain was the victim of the fraction of a second snapshot taken to make McCain look stupid:

As annoying as these type of photos are, they are usually grouped with some normal photos of the victim, so it's easier to let them slide, even though they're always annoying. But this time this was the ONLY McCain photo in the whole slideshow, with the caption:

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is pictured before President Bush addresses the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a think tank, regarding the line item veto Tuesday, June 27, 2006 in Washington.

Again, this isn't a "big deal", when you compare it to other things we've seen, but don't you think the AP photographer could have taken and used a "normal" photo of the Senator?

Perhaps I'm nitpicking here, but I thought this photo warranted at least a mention. Anyway, hopefully I'll be back to more regular blogging soon.