To the editor:

I have often thought of writing to express gratitude for the many years of good-natured hilarity you have provided us through the selection of delightful archive and agency photos you laboriously track down to accompany political reportage: the one of George W. Bush looking almost presidential, for example, coupled with John Kerry’s lugubrious visage, bringing to mind nothing so much as the image of an extra in Night of the Living Dead or All-American Phill Kline, jaw set to battle evil, alongside minor Soprano Paul Morrison evidently choking on an olive pit. I could resist no longer, however, upon seeing the front page on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. What a great joke! Sam Brownback, artfully airbrushed to resemble the young Ronald Reagan, circa 1940!

Michael Doudoroff,

Lawrence