See? The President is too macho and tough! Like Reagan! Even though we were told that there were no pictures of the President shooting, suddenly someone comes up with one in the same amount of time it would take to create one.

But did you miss this part of the story? The White House has warned Americans not to mess with this official photo. Not to touch. Not to Photoshop. In fact, you may not even mock or ridicule the picture.

So we won’t, because we understand that Freedom of Speech means that the photographer can defend his copyright on it, even though it was bought and paid for by us taxpayers, is an official government photo not subject to the usual restrictions regarding creative commentary or even criticism.

Therefore, we will instead admire it. Admire how the President is, as JAB noticed right away, going to get a damned sore collarbone from the pisspoor shooting stance, elbow down so that the butt of the shotgun is in his clavicle and not in the pocket of his deltoid. The Czar will not even add that his sight line is along the side of the barrel and not the top because he is holding too high and absolutely missed whatever he was shooting at.

This is not ridiculing or making fun of the picture. Thankfully it appears to be an over-under and not a semi-automatic, because you know how deadly the latter is.

However, the Czar thinks this is an appropriate time to point out how stupid this picture is from a political perspective.

You just gave right-wingers a bucketload of material to work from. Releasing this picture, and telling them not to mess with it is pretty much not going to fly. In fact, you have just told the Cat in the Hat to keep the kids occupied while you are out. Do the math, morons.

You also have just chilled the blood of all the remaining lefty supporters of gun control, who now see their Gilded One participating in the sport of hell: recreational shooting with a weapon on Feinstein’s prohibited list. The best part is that, looking at the photo, the President is “shooting lefty.” Yeah, irony.

But look at this from another perspective. How bizarre is this?

The President makes a bonehead statement about going skeet shooting “all the time.” Okay, one of the three intelligent members of the media ask, where is the proof of that?

Carney could have lived up to his name and simply said the President doesn’t really shoot a lot and to just let that go; the President was merely exaggerating. Sure, and you know what? We would have bought that because we all do it. And then we drop it and move on to, who knows, something crazier and even further out there, like the millions of unemployed Americans.

But instead, you guys cannot admit the President made a mistake even in something harmless like this. So you stall, stall, stall, and suddenly cough up this photoshopgraph of the President shooting a…what is that, a Beretta?

Curiously, when asked for his birth certificate, which exists, it took you guys 36 months to find it. When asked for his college transcripts, which exist, we are still waiting. When asking what the President knew about Fast and Furious, Benghazi, and a whole bunch of things, well, we still don’t know.

But have someone make a wisecrack about him shooting a shotgun, and behold.

Maybe some less-than-dimwitted member of the media could ask…dunno…other questions? About Fast and Furious? About his college records, the way Bush had to release them? About Benghazi? Come on!

This photo is absolute proof of what a feckless, inept, and thin-skinned President we have. Let’s not ridicule it; indeed, let’s leverage the hell out of this to see what else we can finally learn.

Criticize it? It positively mocks itself.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.