Garbage Time is at hand

With increasing GOP anxiety about losing the White House, expect to see a lot of dubious stuff in the next few weeks.

Here's today's sample.

From TPM:

The last page of a new mailer from the Virginia GOP appears to show a close-up of Barack Obama overlaid with the text:

AMERICA MUST LOOK EVIL IN THE EYE AND NEVER FLINCH

Late Update: With a reader's help, we think we may have found the picture the state party started with, and it's not an Obama photo but an Osama bin Laden photo. We'll have both pics here side by side in a moment so you can compare.

Later Update: The two images:

We used photoshop to align the eyes here. The pupils match up almost exactly:

Just a few points to make here. I grapple with whether it's paranoia at this stage to think that the GOP is conflating Obama and Osama visually -- as they have so often conflated them textually and rhetorically. But look at the pic closely. You've got the turban and beard photoshopped out or otherwise obscured. The flared bulb of the nose is gone, leaving only the narrower bridge. And the photo appears darkened to match Obama's complexion.

You be the judge. But in politics, as in advertising, images are rarely accidental.

Meanwhile, the Secret Service is stopping reporters from interviewing people at Palin campaign events. This from a chat with the Washington Post's Dana Millbank (h/t Romenesko):

Arlington, Va.: The Secret Service has now labeled the "kill him" report as unfounded. Why isn't The Post giving this report as much coverage as the original false report received?

Dana Milbank:

Glad you asked, because I saw this earlier. This is actually about the incident in Scranton, not the one in Clearwater, Fla, that I wrote about here.

I wasn't at the Scranton event, but I have to say the Secret Service is in dangerous territory here. In cooperation with the Palin campaign, they've started preventing reporters from leaving the press section to interview people in the crowd. This is a serious violation of their duty -- protecting the protectee -- and gets into assisting with the political aspirations of the candidate. It also often makes it impossible for reporters to get into the crowd to question the people who say vulgar things. So they prevent reporters from getting near the people doing the shouting, then claim it's unfounded because the reporters can't get close enough to identify the person.