Financial Crisis: Obama Gets Played In Background Check

“We” made progress?  “We” will have a deal? 

This is all McCain could have hoped for, and more.  Johnny comes beyond late to the party, throws a hand grenade into the budget process, then wakes up Friday morning to find, right there on the front page of the NYT, the hero on the march (in his $500 loafers) holding down the middle of the Capitol rotunda while Obama is walking away, out in the rain somewhere without an umbrella. Properly weather-attired agent with his back turned doesn’t help either. 

And then, check out the headline lower left.

… And if you think the headline somehow mitigates the visuals, perhaps tying McCain more closely to the chaos (the word “chaos” floating directly over Obama’s head, by the way), Rove would say, people read the pictures, not the words — especially when they’re this good.  Look at this juxtaposition a week from now and you’ll have wonder, where was Obama when the s–t was going down?

Finally, this lends a lot of sense to the fact McCain spent most of yesterday morning dragging the visual press literally from one end of Congress to the other, and back again.

(images: Mills/Crowley – NYT. Front page. Washington. September 26, 2008)