On Now with Alex Wagner today, the host and her guests were discussing the Boston bomber trial when they touched on the photograph that has been shocking and angering people around the world since it was revealed. Wagner notes that the photo was shown during the sentencing phase, and the panel discusses the relative fairness of the image as a true representation of the murderer.

"In arguing for the death penalty. prosecutors in the Boston marathon bombing trial on Tuesday used this image to argue that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was quote 'unconcerned, unrepentant, and unchanged'," says Wagner. "But surveillance video released by the defense just one day later provided more context. It shows the teen standing in his jail cell three months after the bombing fixing his hair, looking into the camera and flashing a V sign before making the brief offensive gesture."

Note the softening words: he's a teen, the gesture was brief, it needed more context. Wagner then turns to the panel and asks "this, Irin, is like one of the situations where context is everything, right?"

When that first middle finger image came out, it was, I mean, the New York Post has a cover and it is a typical New York Post cover, 'No, eff you Boston Bomber, remorseless.' But when I saw that video, I thought, that looks like an angry 19-year-old in solitary confinement."

The surveillance video shows Tsarnaev mugging and posturing for the camera, sure. And he is probably angry, too. You have to be pretty angry to murder and maim men, women, and children for your radical Islamic beliefs. To suggest that because he is 19 and angry, that it somehow negates or ameliorates the still image is patently absurd. The middle finger shows exactly how he feels now about the justice system and the country that hold him prisoner, and it shows exactly the disregard and lack of feeling for the evil that he has done. How Wagner manages to think that this somehow lessens the meaning of the still image is beyond reckoning. He wasn't racked with guilt, he was a defiant, petulant, angry 19 year old murderer. Just like we all know, just like the prosecution has proved, just as he appears on the cover of the New York Post.

But Wagner doesn't win the prize for dumbest observation. That goes to her guest, MSNBC National Reporter Irin Carmon. Carmon offered up a treasure trove of ignorant and inane analysis and commentary on the program Thursday, but nothing more so than this ridiculous attempt to sound smart. In answering Wagner's dumb question about "context", Irin replies:

It just shows how propagandistic images can be when taken out of context.

Propaganda? Showing the remorseless terrorist for who he is, that's propagandistic and out of context? It is an awful and insane assessment.

And besides, where does an MSNBC reporter get off complaining about propaganda? Come on, people. Know thyself.