Smelling Blood

I knew I should have grabbed a screen shot before the NYT replaced the Geithner photo leading their “AIG/Tim on the rocks” story. In many ways, however, this one leading the story now is more interesting.

The previous TG photo showed Tim, at a distance, alone at a conference table. Squeezed to the far left of the frame, he seemed like the loneliest man in the world. In the shot above, the sense of isolation is actually compounded, however, because Tim’s literally enveloped by the energetic Obama yet still seemingly lost in his head. Of course, the moral weight and visual jolt delivered in Obama’s alignment with MLK only drives home Tim’s isolation that much more. (Adding to the pop: it’s the first time I ‘ve see that bust show up in an Oval Office photo before.)

Also, take a look at this image of Chris Dodd on the newswire today. Between his expression and the other guy’s, it looks like he’s guilty of something. Dodd is in the bull’s eye (at least, the GOP bull’s eye) as the man who allowed language into the stimulus bill which facilitated the AIG bonuses going through. (Notice the last line in the caption below, by the way.)

I’m attracted to both photos for one reason. There’s na overwhelming sense right now, with all the venom and retribution reverberating around the Capitol, of blood in the water.

Update: Thanks to M. Scott Brauer for recovering the original Geithner photo mentioned above.

(image 1: Doug Mills/The New York Times. White House. March 2009. caption: Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner with President Obama last week during an economic briefing at the White House. image 2: Chip Somodevilla/Getty: caption: Senate Banking and Urban Affairs Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-CT) leaves to vote during a hearing on bank supervision and regulation on Capitol Hill March 19, 2009 in Washington, DC. Dodd has become a point of focus in the AIG bonus story after he inserted language in the last economic stimulus bill that allowed the bonuses to be awarded to employees of the insurance giant. Dodd said he added the language at the request of the Obama Administration.)