In a season when Americans are roiling from news of shootings in Newtown in December, and in too many U.S. cities every day, the emcee of the Oscars ceremony last night had the gall to joke about a Presidential assassination.

His invocation of John Wilkes Booth came (many long) hours before a program twist of which no doubt knew – the announcement of the best picture made, via remote telecast, by the 1st Lady, wife of the sitting President, who’d mourned earlier this month with the parents of a Chicago shooting victim.

As a mogul might put it, there’s something wrong with the pictures.