Bin Laden Gets Red X Treatment from Time

Wednesday, 04 May 2011 | by Pat's Picks

Hitler. Saddam. Bin Laden. What do they have in common? They all have had a red x etched over their face on the cover of Time. Kind of the opposite of the magazine’s Person of the Year, the red x has only been used three times in the past—for Adolf Hitler (on May 7, 1945), for Saddam Hussein (on April 21, 2003), and for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (on June 19, 2006); Bin Laden will be the fourth, when the issue hits newsstands tomorrow.

The Atlantic notes that a black x was used over a picture of the Japanese flag (on August 20, 1945) after the US dropped nuclear weapons on the country.

Speaking of Bin Laden-related symbolism, the Daily News has decided to imprint every page of its Osama coverage with red crosshairs next to the words ‘Rot in Hell’: