Enter the Matrix

My friend Craig Brownstein at Edelman (who got interested in this site because of the way we deconstruct the kind of spin his former boss and friend Michael Deaver was so skilled at laying in place) had an interesting take on this stack on the front page of Wednesday’s NYT. Craig, a cinephile, took one look (the top shot taken during a rally in the rain) and saw Obama as Neo in the Matrix. …And wasn’t Neo also an anagram for the “one?”

I wonder if the analogy is set up, at least subconsciously, by that caption “The Battle for Pennsylvania, and Beyond.” I get the context, but the fact McCain is largely camped in Pennsylvania; the mirrors and lights in the McCain shot look a bit extraterrestrial; Obama stands above him, almost emanated by the lights; and the country does hang in the balance caught in the matrix of a chokingly intricate but barely discernible Wall Street/Shock Doctrine network…. Well, that’s beyond.

(image 1: Damon Winter/NYT. image 2: Stephen Crowley/NYT)