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Politics

Jay Carney, Communist Propaganda Connoisseur

Zenon Evans | 4.14.2014 11:39 AM

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White House press secretary and occasional beard grower Jay Carney likes political art. Particularly, he likes Soviet military propaganda.

This fact was accidentally revealed in, of all places, the latest issue of Washingtonian MOM magazine. The journal did a profile on Carney's wife, Claire Shipman. There's a lot of fun facts about Carney's preferred brand of $275 sneakers (Hugo Boss) and how the family's Portuguese water dog is related to Obama's (cousins!).

A few sources picked up on some non-sequiturs, though. Can you spot the strangest thing about this totally candid picture? Hint: It's not that each member of the Carney clan eats a pyramid's worth of food for breakfast.

Washingtonian Mom

Rather, it's the World War II-era Soviet poster pointing over Shipman's shoulder, which asks if you've enlisted in the Red Army yet (because you're going to get drafted anyway), and the other one beyond the sink, which asks if you've gotten a factory job to fill in for your husband (who has probably been shot on the front lines).

Washingtonian MOM, Twitter

In another picture, the family has what appears to be a bust of the U.S.S.R.'s last leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. As a bonus, whoever poorly photoshopped the Carney library for added girth accidentally cloned his son's finger.

Why does Carney decorate with reminders of one of the most murderous governments in history? In case you've been slacking off on your White House personnel trivia, prior to dodging questions for the Obama administration, Carney worked as a journalist in Moscow. He and Shipman met there.

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NEXT: The Next Time Anybody Insists California Has Recovered, Read This

Zenon Evans is a former Reason staff writer and editor.

PoliticsCultureRussiaObama AdministrationArtCommunism
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