The Times-Picayune continues to scrub its coverage of the Nagin photo

Now this is getting ridiculous. After scrubbing its editorial page criticism of New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin -- first in the print edition(s), and then in its online edition -- the Times-Picayune seems to have removed two letters to the editor about the incident from its website, replacing them with two different letters that did not appear on the main editorial page of today's edition.

Here are the letters that appeared in print today, and on the T-P website this morning:

Who's Bonnie? Who's Clyde?

What were they thinking? I said my thoughts out loud as I saw the appalling photo of Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent Warren Riley accompanying reporter Walt Philbin's article on new police equipment in Wednesday's morning paper.

I hope I am not the only one in New Orleans who believes this picture shows grossly inappropriate behavior on the part of the mayor and police superintendent.

How are we to teach the youth of our city that guns are not playthings when we have the two highest-level city officials posing as bad Bonnie and Clyde wannabes?

The first rule in gun safety is never point a gun at another human.

New Orleans carries a very bad reputation as the murder capital of the United States, and the new crime-fighting equipment given to the Police Department is seriously needed.

I do wish the mayor would curb his impulses and try not to act like a buffoon. He really is an embarrassment.

Christa Montgomery, New Orleans

We are not amused

I can't believe I saw a picture with our good Mayor Ray Nagin pointing a rifle at Police Superintendent Warren Riley in Wednesday's paper.

What's even more unbelievable is the fact that Riley finds it funny. What ignorance!

Kenneth Hamilton, New Orleans

But if you visit the paper's online opinion section this afternoon, both Christa Montgomery's and Kenneth Hamilton's letters have been disappeared, replaced with two different LTTEs that didn't run in my print edition:

And yet the original letters critical of the mayor and police superintendent are still buried on the Times-Picayune website...though for some reason someone seems to have stripped off the headlines and replaced them with Xs:

I've got an email query out to the Times-Picayune's editorial page editor Terri Troncale about the whole matter, and will be curious to hear the paper's explanation.

Comments

[Ranger Bob]

The T-P may be trying to disappear this story, but it seems to be gaining traction in the blogosphere.

Five minutes after learning about it here, I ran across it again on a blog belonging to a West Virginia shooter I know. This is not a guy who normally pays much attention to New Orleans affairs, as far as I've ever noticed.

I'm curious now- think I'll start looking at other gun blogs and pages to see if that's where it's spreading.

I have seen the picture. Did you know that it was taken at a conference to show off the new weapons that our police swat team will be receiving? It is not believed that this picture shows ignorance on Nagin or Reily's part, but on the part of the news media. Of the over 500 pictures that were taken at this conference, that Nagin and Riley were captured in, why was this the one they chose to print? They failed to explain that our Mayor who has no experience handling a weapon of this size was trying to put the, safety locked, gun down properly. Of all the excellent work that Nagin and Riley have done, I am disappointed to see that this is the only highlight to get national attention. What IGNORANCE on the part of our country!!!!