Why do people cover their mouths?

[ by Charles Cameron — mostly amused, a little curious ]

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The image is from Vanity Fair‘s Exclusive: President Obama Considered Putting Osama bin Laden on Trial if Taken Alive, teaser for a forthcoming article, which includes this intriguing Obama quote:

I mean, we had worked through a whole bunch of those scenarios. But, frankly, my belief was if we had captured him, that I would be in a pretty strong position, politically, here, to argue that displaying due process and rule of law would be our best weapon against al-Qaeda, in preventing him from appearing as a martyr.

That — the quote itself, the Vanity Fair piece I grabbed it from, their upcoming full article by Mark Bowden, and or Bowden’s own book The Finish, plus any and all ramifications and queries relating thereto — strikes me as the sort of thing we might like to discuss here.

Not that I personally have any competence in such matters.

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What I want to know, just out of idle curiosity, is this: why do so many of the people in the photo want to keep their thoughts to themselves?