When the Washington Post's Rajiv Chandrasekaran abandoned his war-zone embed with the Marines in Afghanistan last week for "personal reasons," military officials thought it sounded serious. But he just needed to go hang out with Matt Damon.

At left, the photo of Imperial Life in the Empire City author Rajiv Chandrasekaran as it appeared in today's New York Times. At right, an artist's conception of how the same item would have appeared had they actually, you know, used a photo of Imperial Life in the Empire City author Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Two…