Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has become such a hot commodity within the GOP of late that even the liberal magazine The New Republic couldn’t help but publish a cover story on him – complete with one of the year’s most controversial cover pages.
The magazine’s cover features a black-and-white portrait of the Kentucky Republican standing tall and stoic in a suit-and-tie. But it’s his left hand that draws the most attention, as his fingers are crossed, something which a senior editor at TNR claims wasn’t photoshopped at all.
Just to recap about our amazing Rand Paul cover image: Its not doctored, and we didn’t ask him to do it. He just did: http://t.co/1pGsMURVtp
— Noam Scheiber (@noamscheiber) June 17, 2013
The article accompanying the confusing cover photo doesn’t exactly spell out exactly why the Kentucky senator’s crossed fingers are adorning the magazine cover, however that hasn’t stopped people from speculating.
Incidentally, the senator posted a poll on his Facebook page Tuesday afternoon asking supporters why they think he’s crossing his fingers. The most popular answer was that Paul “wasn’t at all interested in running for president” in 2016.
The photographer responsible for the cover, Platon Antoniou, also told TNR in a separate interview that Paul was “very defensive” about the shoot but wouldn’t reveal how he got the senator to pose with his fingers crossed.
“Senator Paul was probably convinced that any serious portrait photographer is not really going to be a member of the Tea Party movement,” he said in the interview.
Unsurprisingly, TNR leaves no stones unturned in its attack of the junior senator, questioning his Tea Party Politics and honesty in its piece “The Real Rand Paul (Can’t be Trusted).” In the article, TNR Senior Editor Julie Ioffe, the piece’s author, discusses the senator’s quirks and his “reputation as an eccentric” – which apparently includes one of his transgressions being his habit of buying his own coffee or lunch after becoming a senator. She also explores in-depth of the political relationship between Paul and his father, former congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul (R-Texas), and takes a deep dive into his potential bid for president in 2016.
Though initial reaction to the cover has some questioning Paul’s motives, Mother Jones offered a new interpretation of the senator’s hand gesture and added that his tie serves as a testament to the senator’s commitment to liberty.
Rand Paul wearing a Liberty (longtime London maker of flower-print fabrics) tie for TNR photoshoot is the best sartorial gag of the year.
— Matthew Schmitz (@matthewschmitz) June 17, 2013
Schmitz serves as the the deputy editor of the conservative religious magazine First Things.
And according to the myth-busting website snopes.com, crossed fingers — much like that of Paul’s — are a symbol of duress and coercion. The gesture is often taught to soldiers in survival school in the event they are captured by enemies. When captured, the military teaches soldiers — who posed in pictures or videos for propaganda purposes — to use the gesture as a way to send messages back to intelligence services.
Crossed fingers, the site said, often means the subject “is not really all that pleased.”
“Perhaps Paul was embracing the role he’s carved out in Washington from Day One—that of a conservative freedom fighter deep in enemy territory,” Mother Jones reported.
Or perhaps he conveyed his defensiveness in the photo.
This article has been updated to include additional information.
