So, from
this article,, it appears that the original version of the altered picture was created, not by somebody who wanted to censor history, but as an illustration for an article about a story about Turner Broadcasting supposedly censoring Tom & Jerry cartoons:
Here.
Then somebody picked that picture for use at the museum, without knowing it was altered, and with, as far as we know, no intention to censor history.
Then people nevertheless got upset about the museum censoring history.
So, to review:
1) Turner Broadcasting (apparently) is going to censor Tom & Jerry cartoons to remove exploding cigars because they might encourage cats to smoke, or something.
2) The
Washington Post has a story about it.
3) The
South Puget Sound Libertarian runs
a humorous editorial about the
Washington Post story. The
Libertarian editorial is illustrated by an animated gif showing the Winston Churchill picture with and without the cigar.
4) The image with the cigar removed winds up
here, in a gallery on Fanpix.
5) Somebody at the War Experience museum, looking for suitable Churchill pictures, picks that one.
6) A visitor to the museum gets upset and mistakenly thinks they deliberately censored the picture. (NOTE: At no point has
anyone censored the picture with the intent of making people think Churchill was not smoking a cigar.)
7) The outraged visitor's point of view is presented as fact in
The Daily Mail and picked up elsewhere.
8) Like
The Daily Mail, CatInASuit skimps a little bit on research.
9) We enjoy a little misplaced outrage.