No More Reaching Across The Damn Aisle: Reason Number 236

Early in the 2000 presidential campaign season -- when it was obvious that John Kerry was going to be the Democratic nominee -- Republican operatives began blanketing all media outlets with a photo that showed Senator Kerry and Jane Fonda sharing a speaker's platform at an anti-war rally.

The problem? You guessed it -- the photo was a fake and yet another attempt by conservatives to join Kerry with the Republican's most vilified female.

The picture was created by merging two different photographs taken at two completely different times and places.

Here's the picture of John Kerry taken by 20-year-old photographer Ken Light as Kerry prepared to speak at an anti-war rally:



Here's a picture of Jane Fonda speaking at another time and place:



And via some Photoshop magic, the two are suddenly appearing together:



Photographer Light wrote this editorial in the Washington Post giving his reactions to the issue.

"One speaker in particular caught my attention -- a highly decorated Vietnam veteran named John Kerry. It was a powerful experience, hearing a war hero speak so forcefully against the war," said Light.

It is very sad that such an honest motivation for snapping this picture could be twisted into yet another smear by the Republicans over 30 years later.