Hail to the Veep

Yesterday, many people checked out the Fox news interview in which our Vice President admitted to the weekend events that caused him to join the company of Aaron Burr, as the only other sitting VP to have shot a man while in office. Part of this was intended to diffuse the widespread ridicule that he was facing from late-night comics and from jokers on the Web, like this caption contest for an Elmer Fudd cartoon or this version of the Folsom Prison Blues.

While on the White House website, it's worth visiting the official site of the Vice President. It includes several "photo essays" in which the Vice President rides motorcycles and pals around with the troops. I've blogged about the new political function and visual ideology of photo essays on government sites. They are often virtual albums of publicity pictures or collections of stock photos, and this new electronic genre differs significantly from the traditional photo essay that depends on the point of view of an individual photographer or coherent collective of photographers.