Look at this image. Pretty straightforward, right?
Wrong. (Full-size image here.)
Let’s dissect it, piece by piece.
1. Biden and Obama bookend Romney and Ryan. Newspaper and magazine editors know where your eye goes first. Guess which team is in that position?
2. Biden and Obama are smiling. Romney and Ryan are not.
3. Biden and Obama are fully lit and clear. Romney and Ryan have shadows on them. Ryan’s is even a little creepy, with that shadow of a hand reaching across his chest.
4. Biden’s and Obama’s faces are well-lit and clear. Romney is in shadow, and Ryan is a sickly shade of yellow-green.
I worked in publishing for a long time. I know the process that goes into choosing a photograph before it is sent out to the world. There’s no way the contrasts in the above picture happened by accident. The shading of Ryan’s face, the shadows on the Republican candidates, the full sun, smiling faces on the Democrats–all on purpose, by the photo editor and whoever signed off on the photos. Oh, they’ll deny it to the rooftops. But look again at the contrasts in those photos, and tell me that it’s not deliberate.
Your media bias, deconstructed.
Oh. And it’s in a piece that decries how ugly the campaign has become so far. Yeah. Ironic, isn’t it?
Since the slime is coming entirely from the Obama-Biden campaign, if the media want it to stop they could criticize the Iwon for his Blackadder-level of sliminess. All Romney and Ryan have done is respond to lying insinuations about Romney being responsible for a woman’s death and Ryan wanting to destroy Medicare (which he doesn’t). The Democrats have been waging a campaign of scurrilous lies with no actual content whatsoever, so the Lamestream Media chides “both sides” for being mean to each other. And we thought Clinton was brazen in his mendacity!
As to the substance of the campaign, I’ve been tempted to get a bumper sticker that says “Don’t blame me, I voted for Sarah.” But I live in a deep blue state, and I’m sure the car would be keyed. I’m still convinced Palin would make a good president. She has courage and good sense and good character. I think that a Palin Administration would be competent. The Obama Administration has dealt with all our problems with stunning incompetence, except when it adopted the policies and practices of its predecessor in the war.
One of the problems with the Iwon, I think, is that he doesn’t really desire to exercise power. What he desires are the perks of power, the adulation, the sychophancy, and the wealth that power brings. Actual governing, crafting legislation, overseeing bureaucracies, those tasks he shirks. His signature legislation, Obamacare and the Stimulus, were both crafted by congresscritters to their desires, as well as those of the bureaucracies and lefty activists. Obama just put his name to them and became their publicist (which nearly sank Obamacare; every time he spoke on it the negatives for it went up). Clinton at least realized that he actually had to govern, in intervals between his skirt chasing episodes. Obama ignores that necessity or leaves it up to someone else, Valerie Jarrett perhaps. At least it’s not Michelle, for which we may thank the Good Lord.
Another interesting point is that they appear to be putting Biden with Romney and Obama with Ryan. It is as if they are carefully avoing putting Obama next to Romney for the comparison. It is similar to the way they kept saying how Palin was so much less experienced than Biden while carefully never mentioning that Obama had no experience.
The picture actually implies that Obama would make a better Vice President than Ryan (an absolute falsehood) while saying that Biden looks “more presidential” than Romney because he is in a suit and tie.
Good point, Sabba.
These people have been channeling Goebbels.