Lot of great White House petitions lately. First, the one demanding that the government "formally acknowledge an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race" (the government refuses to do so); and now, a petition calling for a "vapid, condescending, meaningless, politically safe response"from the White House. 
Defense Secretary Robert Gates explained today that photos of Osama Bin Laden's corpse should not be released not only because the actual photos might inflame extremists and act as a propaganda tool for Al Qaeda, but also because of, well, Photoshop. Gates and Hillary Clinton were "worried about the potential for manipulation of those photos and doing things with those photos that would be pretty outrageous in terms of provoking a reaction that might in fact put our troops at greater risk in both Iraq and Afghanistan." Gates also acknowledged that some of the Photoshop work on the Situation Room photo was pretty funny.
Here is Newt Gingrich, looking quite bronzed, officially announcing that he'll be running for president because he believes "we can return America to hope and opportunity, to full employment, to real security, to an American energy program, to a balanced budget." Welcome, Mr. Candidate. According to recent polls, Gingrich is currently behind Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney as a GOP contender. Let the wild rumpus start. (Back in April, Barack Obama announced his own bid for 2012.)
We love this Photoshop from Erica Sackin in today's Free Williamsburg so much, we only wish we'd thought of it first. Headline: "Citing modesty concerns, hipster website removes 'sexually suggestive' male images from Sit Room Photo." YES.
Previously: Newspaper Photoshops Hillary Clinton Out Of Situation Room Photo
via FreeWilliamsburg
Reuters is reporting that the CIA will allow the members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee to see the Osama Bin Laden death photos "if they wish." President Obama had ruled last week that the photos would not be provided to the public for viewing so as not to incite violence and give al Qaeda a propaganda tool. We've never really believed that the photos could be kept secret forever, and providing them to some, even to some who are also senators, seems to virtually guarantee that they will eventually leak to the public. Yet, two-thirds of Americans support Obama's decision not to release them, with only 24 percent saying they felt the photos should be released. So, what's the over-under on how soon those photos will make their way onto the Internet? 
This photograph of Barack Obama's national security team during the Osama bin Laden raid, taken by official White House photographer Pete Souza, moved us all. What were they thinking? What were they seeing? Look at those faces! Especially...Hillary Clinton. It's as if she'd seen a ghost. Or felt really, really allergic. According to the Washington Post, Clinton said she has "no idea" what exactly she and the team were viewing at the moment of the photo. Further, that hand-to-face gesture might not even mean anything! Or might mean something incredibly...mundane. 
TMZ is yet again asking the important -- ahem -- questions. Apparently 80 percent of Americans (who answer TMZ polls) think that Barack and Michelle had sex last night after he "hunted down and killed the most evil man on the planet." This beats Obama's odds in TMZ's previous Did the POTUS Get Laid? poll, in which 74 percent believed that his presidential election was consummated in the bedroom. Killing the world's most wanted terrorist is apparently slightly hotter than becoming president. Of course, the majority of us will never do either.
The official White House photographer Pete Souza captured a dramatic series of images yesterday, May 1, 2011, in the Situation Room of the White House as President Barack Obama gathered with Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other national security team members while they received updates from the mission that ultimately killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan. If you're like us, you've consumed thousands of words of news and analysis today on the subject, clamoring for details of the attack, but few so far do as much as the faces above to tell the story. Another moving photo of Obama after the jump.
• CIA Director Leon Panetta, 72, is to be named by Barack Obama as the successor to Robert Gates as defense secretary. Sources say that General David Petraeus will be named as the replacement for Panetta, and Ryan Crocker will be the new U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan. Obama is expected to make the nomination announcements Thursday. [CNN]
• An Afghan military officer shot and killed eight NATO service members and a contractor who were meeting on the military side of Kabul International Airport. Though the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, the Afghan Army disputes that. [NYT]
More »
• Hopefully this doesn't come as a surprise: Your taxes are due today, an extension of three days on account of Emancipation Day, a D.C. holiday which was celebrated Friday. You have until midnight tonight to postmark your returns. Some post offices will be open late. [CNN] 
• 45 people have been killed by severe storms in the South, including six victims in Virginia and 22 in North Carolina, where 92 tornadoes hit. [CNN, Pat's Papers]
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