Time's Ann Coulter article: Communists for Kerry!

I don't know if I should laugh about this or cry.  Time Magazine, in their new Ann Coulter cover girl article, published the following photo, credulously attributing it to the Left:

Even the most casual fact-checking would have quickly shown that "Communists for Kerry" is a conservative satire group.  This is the equivalent of the MSM photographing a Billionaires for Bush "protestor" holding an "FDR was a dirty rotten leper" sign at a Social Security privatization rally and editorially attributing the sentiment to the broader conservative movement.

Of course, that will have to remain a hypothetical as long as said "rallies" are held in tightly controlled venues with police forcibly removing anyone who isn't on the list (or who drove in with the wrong set of bumper stickers).

Even that last bastion of dubiously "fair and balanced" reporting, Fox News, was able to get the parody thing straight (at least some of the time) last year:

And then there were the pranksters in the audience . . . the Communists for Kerry (who, in fact, are rooting for Bush) and the Billionaires for Bush (who, of course, are Kerry supporters).

"We're trying to get Comrade Kerry elected and get that capitalist enabler George Bush out of office," said 17-year-old Komoselutes Rob of Communists for Kerry.

"Even though he, too, is a capitalist, he supports my socialist values more than President Bush," said Rob.

Asked several times if his group was a parody, Rob insisted with a straight face that the Communists for Kerry were not, in fact, supporting Bush.

On the other side were the Billionaires for Bush, who in fact are supporting Kerry.

"There should have been some advertising, some commercials to generate money for the U.S.A.," said Hugh G. Monument, VII.

The Bush "supporter" then extolled the president's virtues.

"What I love about Bush is his money and his ability to make more money," he said.

[Update]
If you click on the photo, you'll get the page on Time's web site with additional information. The caption is "Protesters blast Coulter at the G.O.P. Convention in New York City last year." Clearly, these guys dislike Coulter about as much as Time does.

The photo credit is Katja Heinemann of Aurora Photos. According to her bio, she is interested in "the pageantry of American patriotism and militarism as experienced after September 11th." She was obviously covering the right-wing protesters for that reason. I'm sure the Time people just did a keyword search for "Ann Coulter" in their photo service, and went "Oooo, protesters!" The editor responsible for the content must not have batted an eye.