If you spend all day surrounded with photographers snapping your picture, to the extent that they collectively have a “movie” of you in individual frames, sooner or later someone’s going to catch a goofy shot of you. I.e., the accompanying pic of Obama. (Folks can’t decide whether to call it “Frankenbama” or “Barackula”)

Obama’s actually usually been fairly photogenic. McCain suffers a bit more (his most recent goofy picture was the marionette-lizard-man from the last debate). 

Choosing pics of candidates is a tough call. Most political ads showing the opposition are usually like the “before” pictures in a diet commercial — it’s the least flattering lighting, the most lifeless or ugly or evil expression on the person’s face, etc. Just like those “Eek, that’s what Angelina Jolie really looks like” candids that you see on the tabloids as they cross the street or sit on a park bench or pic their nose or are caught in a full photo flash at a restaurant, it’s not necessarily a fair representation of what the person looks like (arguably the normal posed picture isn’t “fair” either).

So I’ve tried to refrain from showing pics of McCain or Palin at their caught-picking-their-teeth or bad-gas-attack worst. These things happen, as anyone who takes pictures of their own family knows.

Sometimes they’re pretty darned funny, though. If taken as humor, that’s fine. If used to make some deep, dark, nasty point about the person, that’s probably not.