We Know You Were Waiting for Obama’s Photographer Pete Souza to Respond to That Tasteless Mocking of Hillary Clinton’s Portrait

This week, Sarah Palin was invited to the White House for dinner, and according to her blog, she was invited to bring a few friends along. And because, I suppose, some people just want to watch the world burn, she chose Kid Rock and Ted Nugent. You probably saw the pictures going around: they in their cowboy hats, she in her festival season finest, posing with Trump in the Oval Office.

Then the group tracked down Hillary Clinton’s White House portrait from her days as First Lady. Palin, Kid Rock, and Nugent—the last of whom once called for Barack Obama and Clinton to be hung, called Clinton a “devilbitch,” and, oh yeah, wrote a song about wanting to rape a 13-year-old girl—took a picture sneering in front of the portrait, because winning* an election just doesn’t mean anything if you can’t also rub it in your opponent’s face, right?

The internet comments and professional commentators alike are dragging the picture for its immaturity and tasteless disrespect. (The View’s Joy Behar, for example, asked “Is this the saddest day in the history of the White House since the British burned it to the ground in 1814?”)

But if you’re like me, you were waiting for the clapback from one specific person: Pete Souza, President Obama’s former White House photographer. We love Souza around these parts for his expert ability to throw the most brilliant, scathing, and completely indirect shade through strategic repostings of old photographs on Instagram. He was ready for this day. Here’s what he posted, with the simple, contextually brutal caption, “Being respectful.”

Being respectful.

A post shared by Pete Souza (@petesouza) on Apr 20, 2017 at 12:22pm PDT

This is your regular reminder not to ever get on Pete Souza’s bad side.

(image: Obama White House / Flickr)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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