Everyone has seen the video of a security agent manhandling a photographer at a Donald Trump rally in Virginia. For those who haven’t seen it, details and clips are available from Mother Jones here.
When I read the accounts of the incident, I saw the photographer’s name, Chris Morris, and thought: hmm, that sounds familiar. Today my friend Mary Parsons, now the art director for American Prospect and in the early 2000s art director for The Atlantic, explained why.
Christopher Morris was the photographer whose work we used as a cover image on a story 12 years ago, for our January 2004 issue (subscribe!) That was for my story “Blind Into Baghdad” (and later a book of the same name), about the way the Bush administration’s fecklessness in planning the invasion of Iraq led to problems whose ramifications we are dealing with even now. You see his great photograph, with Donald Rumsfeld looming Easter Island-like, at right.
Roughing up the press (or anyone), at rallies, is not a good sign, no matter who it happens to. But in case you were wondering who the photographer who got slammed to the ground was, it’s the same person who has done impressive work for us and many others.
Update If you go to Christopher Morris’s portfolio page, please check out (among others) this photo of the previous administration’s national security team. It’s one of a large group of very impressive pieces of work.