Our morning friendly, the Freeploid (the Cafeteria Lady of Vermont journalism) delivered a heapin’ trayful of political news today. There was the unveiling of Randy Brock’s Dick In A — sorry, Business In A Box plan. There was a political roundup column. There were dueling op-eds from Brock and Governor Shumlin on health care.

And there was an overview of the race for Treasurer, accompanied by a pair of photographs that, considering their visual presentation, might well have been chosen by the VTGOP.

The article is headlined “CONFIDENT VERSUS CONCERNED.” Which refers to incumbent Beth Pearce’s certitude in the soundness of Vermont’s fiscal path, and challenger Wendy Wilton’s alarmism.

It is accompanied by photographs that present exactly the opposite image: a smiling Wilton standing outside the Statehouse on a gorgeous sunny day, and a frowny Pearce speaking in some indoor public setting.

With Governor Shumlin hovering directly behind her.

What do these two pictures tell us? That Wilton is a self-actualizer at home in the corridors of power; while Pearce is reticent if not downright mousy, and wields authority only through her relationship to an Alpha Male.

In the printed paper, the two photographs are the same size and placed side-by-side. On the Freeploid’s website, however, the WIlton photo is splashed across the top of the story, while the Pearce photo is smaller and tucked into the body of the article.

The article itself isn’t bad. But the visual presentation comes across as a covert bit of Republican propaganda. If it wasn’t meant as such, it was badly bungled by a layout designer who’s astoundingly clueless about the impact of images.