Drudge Uses Fake TSA Photo in Gay Baiting Napolitano

I’d had a couple thoughts about Sullivan’s take on the diptych he pulled off the Drudge site this week.

After nailing Drudge for gay-baiting, I’m not sure why Sullivan feels the need to factually disavow the sleazy inference of the juxtaposition — that Napolitano couldn’t have been secretly leering at body scan images because airport personnel aren’t recording them? Seems like it indicts itself.

What makes the diptych most relevant, though, is the timing.  This piece of trash led Drudge’s site on Wednesday (here’s the archived page) and appeared just under the lead on Thursday (archived page again).  So, is there any reason you could think of for such a double blast? Hmm, it couldn’t have had anything to do with the (intensely awaited) decision overturning Prop 8 on Wednesday afternoon, could it?

Finally, I’m wondering where Drudge got that scan. It doesn’t match the images in the CNET story he links to, which are not as explicit as this, and which also have the faces smudged out. I’ve seen quite a few examples of these scans, knowing how much the media gets off on the more revealing female examples, but I haven’t seen one this “precise.” But then, you wouldn’t think one of Matt’s cronies might have done a little work on it in Photoshop do you?  Any thoughts from any of you Photoshop pros out there?

UPDATE: Thanks to reader spork_incident for passing along this link confirming the photo on the right is a fake. Since this knowledge has been floating around for at least a week, you’d think Drudge would have known about it.

From Kashmir Hill at TrueSlant:

“The first clue to this being a hoax is that people don’t usually assume the Jesus pose while being checked out by TSA personnel. In fact, the woman is not a frequent flyer. She’s a nude model….”  Read the whole post.

Note: title updated and post slightly edited: 6:35 pm.

(no photo credits available — another long term Drudge shortcoming)