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… your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

The United States Postal Service recently printed a batch of stamps of our fair Lady Liberty. Great idea for a financially hemorrhaging national government agency! Or it least it would have been if they had used the right photo.

The New York Post is reporting that the $880 million in stamps that went to press carried the face of not our proud Statue of Liberty on Ellis Island, but a Las Vegas replica:

Somehow the Postal Service insists that the stamps, introduced last December, have “no error in the artwork.”

“The error was in the description, which we’ve changed to indicate was a replica,” Betts said.

An investigation by Linn’s Stamp News exposed the mistake after proving that the eyes, eyelids and eyebrows on the Lady Liberty replica were more sharply defined than those of the original statue.

The real difference between the two statues should be obvious to anyone: People arrive tired and poor at the New York one — and leave that way from the Las Vegas one.

The true beauty in government agencies is when they try to cover up their mistakes. And this is a pretty big one. To claim that the USPS intentionally used this photo instead of a photo of the original is pretty silly, and likely untrue — especially since it followed an investigation from a journalistic publication proving the image to be of the Vegas replica.

Is it offensive to those whose families braved the long and arduous journey across the Atlantic to find hope and prosperity within the borders of our great nation? As the member of one of those families, I’m going to say no.

But a hilarious embarrassment on the part of the United States Postal Service? You betcha.

  1. NGA says:

    Anyone else seen the USPS commercial advertising that their shipping prices are lower than private companies b/c they have no fuel surcharge…nothing like a public company cheating out private ones at the expense of taxpayers.

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