CENSORING ART IN RICHMOND:

Presidential hopeful Barack Obama hasn’t been elected and already his campaign is engaged in a cover-up of sorts.

Before the Illinois senator spoke Tuesday night at a Richmond art gallery to about 500 Democrats, an Obama advance woman asked the gallery to cover one painting deemed potentially offensive and to remove another.

Artist Jamie Boling said he first was offended by the censorship but now has mixed feelings. In today’s political and cultural climate, the pictures could have been used against Obama, he said.

They told me that if George W. Bush was reelected we’d see objectionable paintings taken down. And they were right! (Via Don Surber, who comments: “Shades of John Ashcroft and the nekkid statue.” Hey, thanks to Alberto Gonzales, Ashcroft is acquiring a retroactive glow!)