January 27, 2014 12:20 PM UTC

For the Love Of...STOP USING AURORA SHOOTING PHOTOS for Political Stories

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• by: Colorado Pols

What is it with right-wing political commentators and their complete inability to do a simple search on the origin of a photo? We pointed this out, again, when radio talk show host Peter Boyles used a photoshopped image from a moment during which elected officials were greeting each other somberly after the Aurora theater Shootings.

The right-wing outlet "The Daily Caller" is attempting to drub some kind of scandal into Sen. Mark Udall's research into claims that hundreds of thousands of Coloradans received incomplete notices about changes resulting from Obamacare — a "scandal" that has already been debunked as nonsense on numerous occasions.

Naturally, whenever right-wing outlets are trying to create a scandal out of thin air, they always like to imply that President Obama is somehow involved as well. That's probably why "The Daily Caller" used the picture on your right in their story.

Here's the caption for the photo at right, as supplied by Saul Loeb of AFP/Getty Images:

President Obama, joined by Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colo., tells a story he heard from one of the shooting victims about holding her fingers on her best friend's neck to stop the bleeding. The president spoke during a visit to the University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora, Colo.

It's not overly difficult to do a Google image search and check the source of your picture. This picture misuse isn't nearly as bad as the more commonly-photoshopped picture that also includes Sen. Michael Bennet and Gov. John Hickenlooper (here's one of the most egregious examples), but it's still an inappropriate use of a photo taken during a terrible time in Colorado — and around the country. Whatever emotions the reader might infer from this picture are unfair to a lot of people.