The annals of political imagery are replete with disasters, moments when the most carefully crafted public persona dissolves in a moment of ludicrous self-parody. Some of these have become clichés. Pick a Democrat candidate for national office, and the shotgun and camo photo-op becomes unavoidable, Tim Walz’s the latest in a very long and ever-ridiculous line. Sometimes, they come close to single-handedly derailing a presidential campaign.

The 1988 photo of Michael Dukakis riding in a tank, helmeted and wearing a dopey grin, also comes to mind. Running against the man who’d been an actual Navy combat pilot, one shot down after bombing a Japanese target, it cemented a national conviction that Dukakis had no business being our commander-in-chief. The contrast could scarcely have been more stark. ….

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