Excuse me, but if Blair is a liberal and he is smoking a cigarette, doesn't that mean that liberals don't really "hate" tobacco as much as their reputation suggests they do???
My goodness. If you want to paint tobacco as some sort of sanctified conservative cause I guess you can twist anything to "prove" it!
Just the opposite. I see that picture as a liberal attempt to make a fool look worse than his employer. The NYT suck and conservatives know it, this picture IMHO, is designed to whip up the nico-nazi's that consider the NYT the bible of daily record. Make Blair as unlikeable as possible to spare the ones higher up the food chain.
I live in the PNW, I've seen how these liberals think, (excuse me, FEEL), up close and personal. That picture meant something.