From the Catholic conservative bloggers at Creative Minority Report comes this montage of photos of Barack Obama, taken by the media (which they source to the conservative media watchdog Newsbusters). Considering how much trouble poor Mike Huckabee's campaign got over a "floating cross" from a bookshelf, it's pretty astonishing to consider news media photos of the Democratic candidate which do all but show him walking on water.
I suppose that one could make the case that the media is an equal opportunity iconographer--but you'd have to find images of John McCain that don't seem to be purposely making him out to look like the "Wallace" character from the popular children's shows featuring Wallace and Gromit.
Of course, the media photographers can't be blamed too much for getting caught up in all the Obama excitement. How many presidential candidates have been the inspiration for a fashion designer's spring/summer collection, after all?
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Pfft. This is silly. (As was the Huckabee thing.)
First of all, two of those were actually taken in a church, so it's rather silly to point out, hey, there's cross or angel in the background. Yeah, that's cause the photographer wanted a picture of him obviously at a church. You go to take a picture of Obama at a church and you come back with him in front of a brick wall that could be anywhere, the editor will kill you. I'm not even sure how they could have framed a picture of him at that church's podium without the cross in the background.
Two others are at the same place with a circular thing out of focus behind him. That sort of alignment happens all the time when people give speeches in front of things...the Daily Show made fun of a picture of Bush like that a year ago. (And Colbert's having fun, right now, with McCain appearing in front of that absurd green screen.) 'Juxtaposition photos', along with 'funny news tickers under a person' and 'person making face in background during speech' are good for a laugh sometimes, but not for a very big one.
I don't understand why the cover of Newsweek is there. That's a pretty standard shot for Newsweek. Newsweek (And Times) always have people standing and looking at weird angles, and I can't imagine what secret message they're supposedly sending with a side profile of his face. Oh, I know...he's looking to the left!
The other two magazines...well, it's interesting that they outline him in white. I'm wondering what that says about race. And, speaking of candidates being in front of things, Obama has horns on the Time cover. And he has a huge forehead and a pencil-neck in the Rolling Stone picture cause they scrunched the image horizontally for no logical reason.
The aimed-up photo, is, of course, a deliberate attempt to show him as larger-than-life, but, seriously, we're talking about less than a dozen photographs out of the hundreds of thousands that must have been taken of Obama. (And, what's more, we have no idea their source or where they were used, except for the mag covers.)
"Obama is not running in a Republican primary against a Mormon and is not a candidate whose primary support is from people who believe Mormon's are going to hell because they aren't Christians.
It is really all about context. Huckabee's appeal was as the Christian candidate."
Daniel for goodness sake HUckabee was wishing people Merry Christmas. Mormons like Christmas too
DavidTC, my friend, I agree with all of your points, but don't bother.
It's just that the Right is having a "Sunset Blvd." moment, and it's probably best to just sidle over a bit and watch this meltdown from a safe distance.
Wasn't it Huckabee's GOP opponents who got that silly story started in the first place? It was silly then and it's silly now.
Oh my, this posting has me laughing hysterically. Obama is pretty good looking, Oh, I'll OUT with it, I think he's cute.
It doesn't hurt his case any. McCain is 71 and LOOKS like Wallace from Wallace and Grommit. I don't fault him for it, he's lived seven decades, he's been a POW in Vietnam, he's been hanging out in the Senate for quite some time, plus he's had a melanoma. And it all shows. Again, this doesn't hurt his case any. He bears his life experiences with great grace and even humor, if you ask me.
I certainly hope people are looking at substance over style. Or at least in addition to it...
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