George W. Bush was with President Barack Obama and other dignitaries on Saturday to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, but The New York Times appears to have edited the former president out of its front page photo.
The
photo of the marchers setting off from Montgomery, Alabama, that accompanied the Times' online story Saturday showed a wide shot of the Obama family marching with Rep. John Lewis, who was at the original protest in 1965, and MSNBC host Al Sharpton, but did not show either George W. Bush or former first lady Laura Bush.
The article, written by Times reporters Peter Baker and Richard Fausset, mentioned Bush was at the ceremony 10 paragraphs into the story.
A photo tweeted by
Atlanta's WSB-TV showed a wider shot and mentioned in its post that Bush was in attendance.
Whether the Times intended to omit President Bush from its coverage or not, the story caught fire on social media and in conservative media outlets.
"Times photographer Doug Mills tweeted out his photo 24 hours ago, as it appeared later on the front page. The photo, one of several he took and tweeted, clearly centered on Obama,"
noted Evan McMurry of Mediate.
Republican National Committee spokesman Sean Spicer also used social media to
note the omission.
"Suprise, suprise: @nytimes Crops Out George W. Bush From Their #Selma50 Front Page Picture," the RNC spokesman tweeted.
Others were more overt in expressing their dissatisfaction with the decision by the 41st president to mark the historic march for civil rights.
During an interview with NewsOne's Roland Martin, Martin Luther King's former aide, Diane Nash, said she refused to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge with Bush because he "condoned" violence and torture.
"I refused to march because George Bush marched," Nash told Martin on Saturday.
President Bush was the only former commander in chief to take part in the events of the weekend.
After voicing her displeasure with not having a seating section set aside for the "foot soldiers," Nash launched a string of criticisms of Bush.
"I think the Selma movement was about non-violence and peace and democracy. And George Bush stands for just the opposite. For violence and war and stolen elections," she said, adding that it was "not appropriate for him" to attend.
Watch the video here.
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