It's not hard to make John McCain look silly in photographs, what with his perma-scowl and crazy comb-over, so one wonders why celebrity photographer Jill Greenberg, a loyal Democrat, put so much effort into sabotaging a recent shoot with the Arizona senator.

Not only did Greenberg use a strobe light to "[turn] the septuagenarian's face into a horror show of shadows," according to the New York Post, she also didn't use Photoshop to touch up the images the shoot yielded. To industry publication Photo District News, Greenberg admitted, "I left his eyes red and his skin looking bad." Funny.

Not laughing is The Atlantic. The magazine most likely to be found on Ivy Leaguers' toilets bought one of Greenberg's biased photos for use on their current cover, not knowing that it was product of such an "unprofessional" shoot. "We feel totally blind-sided," said editor James Bennet, covering his ass.

Greenberg's having her cake and eating it, too. Besides landing on the cover of The Atlantic, her tainted images have been a great source of amusement for the photographer, who has on her Web site posted an updated set in which she's added a monkey pooping on McCain's head to one and a mouth of razor-sharp, bloody teeth to another, complete with a text bubble reading, "I am a bloodthirsty warmonger."

Click through for visuals.

CONTINUED »

• Apparently, the new Atlantic editor James Bennet does have phone, and he's not afraid to use it. [NYO]

• Ok, seriously, Bush makes everyone want to puke. We want our news media to be fair, but they still have to be human. [Drudge]

• The Smoking Gun's Bill Bastone goes to NYU. So far we are the only bloggers left not to be invited back to our Alma Mater. Is it because we didn't go that whole "journalist" route? [WWM]

• People will seriously do anything to get on TV. And The Simpsons will to anything to get people to watch their show. [Boston Globe]

• OK! magazine reviews television shows without actually watching them. And nobody cares, along as we get Radar back. [WWD]

New York Times reporter James Bennet is set to join The Atlantic as their first editor since 2002.

And nobody could be be happier for Bennet than Bill Keller, the brilliant, up-to-the-minute executive editor of the Times. What's Keller's insightful advice?

"He'll have to slow his heartbeat to the pace of a monthly, which may be frustrating for a guy so deeply engaged in the news, but it's a brilliant choice," Mr. Keller said. "His name on the masthead will be enough to make me grab for the magazine."

Oh, yes, The Atlantic's masthead. Keller must mean that non-existent list of names at the front of the magazine. Or, maybe that's just his kind way of saying, "I'll wont be picking up that piece of shit any time soon."

The Atlantic Picks Writer at The Times as Its Editor [Katharine Q. Seelye, New York Times]