Memo to conservative women: When approached by Newsweek or Time for a cover story, always bring your own photographer.  Michelle Malkin knows a thing or two about the predilection at the news magazines for using unflattering photos on their covers, and this week’s cover of Michele Bachmann is no exception to that trend.  In this case, they’re not even being subtle, as Time did with its Ann Coulter cover a few years ago in which they distorted the perspective to give the firebrand author exaggerated length to her legs and a shrunken torso.  Newsweek perches a blank-looking Bachmann over block letters calling her “THE QUEEN OF RAGE”:

Rage?  I’ve certainly heard Bachmann talk tough about encroaching government and the avalanche of spending and debt, but in all the years I’ve known and covered Bachmann, I’ve never heard her rage at anyone.  It seems as though Newsweek has a double standard in effect for conservatives, women, and especially conservative women.  When Barack Obama told an audience in June 2008 that “if they bring a knife to a fight, we bring a gun,” did Newsweek crown him the King of Rage — or at any time in his class-warfare-based presidential campaign?  For that matter, when Debbie Wasserman-Schultz stated that Republicans wanted to reinstate Jim Crow laws, did anyone accuse her of being filled with rage?  Not exactly.

The Boss Emeritus notes that the signal has been sent and received by Newsweek/The Daily Beast to the sinistrophere:

The once-mighty Newsweek magazine-turned-Beast is apparently so proud of its Democratic Underground-pandering Michele Bachmann cover and title that its editors are promoting the photo and pushing the hashtag #QueenofRage on Twitter.

And the left-wing press is eating it up:

Gawker, predictably: “Ha ha, just kidding—they don’t call her CrazyEyes for nothing.”

The Village Voice rejoices after receiving a high-res image of the cover (and dutifully cropping Bachmann’s eyes).

They’re promoting this through a Twitter hashtag?  Yeah, that’s keeping it classy.

Conservative candidates have to learn that Newsweek, Time, and other mainstream publications won’t be their friends, or even be objective.  They plan on making news, not reporting it.  This is just one of the least subtle examples we’ll see in the next fifteen months.