Comments:   As far-fetched as this is on the face of it — any American citizen of Tom Daschle's age has been so thoroughly conditioned from grade school on to salute the flag by putting his right hand over his heart that unthinkingly doing the opposite would be practically impossible — the photo seems to prove that the senator did just that.

A closer look reveals otherwise.

Note first that Daschle doesn't appear to be wearing a wedding band, yet in every other photograph I was able to find in which his left hand is visible, he is wearing one.

Note secondly that in this image the right side of Daschle's jacket is buttoned over the left, which isn't how men's suit jackets are constructed. Traditionally, the left side always overlaps the right (cf. Trent Lott, standing to Daschle's left), therefore it would appear Daschle's jacket was tailored backwards.

What we are looking at, then, is a Photoshop prank in which Daschle's torso has been cut out, inverted and pasted back into the picture such that he seems to saluting the flag with the wrong hand. So far as I know, no such incident ever took place in the real world.

Last updated: 03/24/03