41 Reasons to Love the Second-Half Obama

It’s a brilliantly simple photo on today’s White House Flickr Stream, considering Souza could have highlighted a photo of Obama with almost any of the Presidential Medal of Honor winners today at the White House taking his pick of a labor, or civil rights/liberal, or black artist or a black sport legend. But that’s not John Sweeney, John Lewis, Maya Angelou or Bill Russell standing with him anywhere else in the White House, is it. No, that would be way off message. (See full list of honorees at WH post here.)

This shot, in contrast, emphasizes how much Team Obama has gotten its visual spin down following the mid-term recallibration.  It also illustrates how much of the mindshare Obama has been capturing, at every opportunity, from the center-right.

What I read?

• I’m a lot closer to the sober 41 than the renegade 43 (who didn’t go rushing into the Arab world like a lunatic, by the way).  Yeah, the Resolution Desk Dubya used is there at the vanishing point.

• I respect my elders.

• I’m not scary. I’m not different. I’m not anything you aren’t already familiar with. I’m continuity.

• I’m no liberal.

(photo: Pete Souza. caption: President Barack Obama meets with former President George H. W. Bush in the Oval Office, Feb. 15, 2011)