Warped message

You would think members of the federal Liberal Party would know better. Their leaders have occasionally been at the butt end of jokes, compliments of the Conservative Party in recent years.
It was the other way around this week with a couple of Photoshopped images posted online.
The more disturbing of an altered pair of pictures on the Liberals' website was the famous photo of Jack Ruby with his gun firing into the belly of John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's face is superimposed by the photo manipulation over Oswald's, with what could be taken as a grimace of pain.
That's hardly amusing never mind your political meanderings. It was removed after it began receiving public attention.
The other showed Harper with his arm stuck in the hind end of a cow. Liberal spokesman Dan Lauzon said the image was meant to poke fun at the carbon emissions produced by bovine flatulence - thus a possible À propos statement. The photos had been part of a contest, after all, in which the party invited people to make up humorous pictures portraying the prime minister's reluctance to participate in the Copenhagen climate-change summit. But this latter was removed "due to the possibility of misinterpretation."
Possibility of misinterpretation should be a forethought.
Unfortunately the Conservatives "joke" photo of a puffin dumping on former Liberal leader Stephane Dion's shoulder last year wasn't the end of it.
Political engagement in this country has slid in the past number of years, with about 50 per cent of eligible voters now bothering to exercise their privilege. Those who are still paying attention and take their politics seriously are for the most part not impressed by such shenanigans. So, reasons for engaging in them are a mystery.
The response has been that Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff had nothing to do with the photo contest or website - thus the apology so far has been a general one from the party. But all parties should make it plain to adherents that insulting messages don't get a point across.