More evidence that Errol Morris is one of the world’s biggest blowhards is in his ponderous op-ed piece in the Times.

His subject was the widely seen photo of an Iranian weapons test. It transpired after the photo was published around the world that it was apparently altered; parts of the image seemed to have been duplicated. Reports said that it was possible one of the four missiles in the launch had misfired, and the image had been photoshopped to hide the incident.

For Morris, this is a ready-made occasion to proffer mundanity …

The alteration of photos for propaganda purposes has been with us as long as photography itself; it is not an invention of the digital age.

… after mundanity…

But while digitally altered photographs can easily fool the eye, they often leave telltale footprints that allow them to be unmasked as forgeries.

In Morris’s mind, however, this are deep thoughts—so deep that they require, as you can see in the second one, some four clashing metaphors to get across.

He predictably digresses into the distortion of photographs by Communist regimes. Morris then writes:

We understand Stalin’s intentions by removing comrades, but what is the purpose of these Iranian missile photographs? They are clearly altered. The question remains: Why, and to what end?

The portentous emphases are Morris’s own. As I’ve noted before, it is one of the filmmaker’s tics to ask questions with an air of profundity. But when you examine the questions you realize they aren’t very profound. The ones here, for example, are almost risible.

But now Morris is on a roll:

The danger here is not in three missiles versus four.

What does that mean? Who said it was?

We do not understand the intentions behind the photograph—real or digitally manipulated.

Yes, we do. We understand why they were released, and have a pretty good idea why they were altered.

Is it a threat? A warning? Or a bluff?

What do those questions mean?

All we really know about the photograph is that the government of Iran wanted to get the attention of the world, and it succeeded.

No—they got our attention with their missile launch. The photo is a sideshow. It wasn’t even released officially by the Iranians; it was taken, reports said, from a military web site in Iran by Agence France-Presse.

Why is this guy taken seriously?